Monsters from the myriad worlds of Dungeons & Dragons.

Notes on the Entries

A creature's Origin denotes the specific campaign setting it debuted in, if any. This is not to say that setting is the only place that creature can be found — D&D has a long history of repackaging creatures from sub-settings for general use, and ultimately the DM decides what appears in a game.
A creature's listed Challenge Rating may be for "baseline" examples of the monster, rather than listing every advanced variant presented in Monster Manuals. Also remember that 3rd and 5th Edition use a 1-20 scale for "standard" Challenge Ratings, while 4th Edition uses 1-30.
Not all Playable creatures are created equal, especially in 3rd Edition, in which Monster Adventurers can have significant Level Adjustments for the sake of party balance.
A creature's listed Alignment is typical for the race as a whole, not an absolute for every individual in it — even supposed embodiments of Good and Evil can change their alignment. Also, if there are two alignments listed, and one is for 4th Edition, assume that the other alignment holds true for all other game editions. Finally, the "Always Neutral" alignment listed in previous editions for nonsapient creatures has been equated with the "Unaligned" alignment of recent editions.

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Dabus

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Humanoid (3E), Immortal Humanoid (4E), Celestial (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E, 5E)
Alignment: True Neutral (3E), Unaligned (4E), Lawful Neutral (5E)

Horned humanoids who live in and maintain the great planar metropolis of Sigil, and only communicate through minor illusions.

Almighty Janitor/Slave Race: It depends who you ask. To some, the dabus are the secret masters of Sigil, while others consider them nothing but the Lady's minions. Whatever the truth is, they know the city better than anyone, and their homes and workshops beneath its streets are rarely seen by outsiders.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: It's never been confirmed, but dabus are speculated to reproduce by merging enough of their thought-pictures to create a fully-formed new dabus.
Domain Holder: Downplayed; while their control over Sigil doesn't equal the Lady's, 5th Edition describes how dabus can repair cracked masonry or toppled brickwork just by being near damaged buildings. This also lets them fight using the environment, firing bricks at enemies or causing the ground to reach up and immobilize a threat.
Hover Skates: Their feet never quite touch the ground, though dabus are incapable of true flight. But this makes them immune to both movement-impairing effects like transmute rock to mud, as well as spells like gust of wind that can adversely affect flying creatures.
Martial Pacifist: 5E gives dabus the "Physical Restraint" rule, preventing them from making melee attacks or attacks of opportunity, even when attacked by someone else. Instead, dabus defend themselves using their control of Sigil itself.
No Biological Sex: Dabus are sexless beings.
Rebus Bubble: Dabus don't speak, despite having mouths, instead they can cause images to appear over their heads, thought-pictures they use to communicate sounds or concepts. This is so similar to the phirblas' strange form of communication that there's in-universe speculation that the Lady of Pain made the first dabus from phirblas stock.

Daelkyr

Origin: Eberron
Classification: Outsider (3E), Aberrant Humanoid (4E), Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 20 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Evil (4E), Chaotic Evil (5E)

Horrendously powerful beings from a realm of madness, who can twist flesh as easily as their very presence warps other creatures' minds.

Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The true form of a daelkyr is alien beyond comprehension to most creatures, so they appear as a perfect paragon of a member of the same race as the observer — a human sees a perfect human, while a goblinoid sees a perfect bugbear, etc.
Biomanipulation: The daelkyr have the power to warp normal creatures into twisted aberrations.
Driven to Madness: 3rd edition daelkyr can release pulses of "mental chaos" which temporarily drive nearby creatures mad, unless the victim succeeds on a difficult Wisdom saving throw. In 5th edition, humanoids can go mad just from being within a mile of a daelkyr's lair for more than an hour.
Eye Beams: Belashyrra can fire various magical rays from its eyes like a beholder. More disturbingly, it can also fire these beams from the eyes of any other creature within several hundred feet, or make eyes grow from the walls and fire off beams of their own.
Healing Factor: Daelkyr heal incredibly quickly, regaining a fixed number of hit points every turn.
Humanoid Abomination: The daelkyr are utterly inscrutable eldritch beings with the power to reshape reality as they see fit, a fact which makes their nearly human appearances all the more unsettling.
Kryptonite Factor: In 3rd edition, the daelkyr and their creations are vulnerable to weapons made of a rare metal called byeshk, which can bypass their innate Damage Reduction.
Mad Artist: The daelkyr have been described as poets, sculptors and musicians, though ones who use flesh as their canvas and the destruction of worlds as their art pieces.
Maker of Monsters: On the world of Eberron, most aberrations were created by the daelkyr. Beholders owe their existence to Belashyrra the Lord of Eyes, for instance, while mind flayers are the creations of Dyrrn the Corruptor. Some non-aberration monsters like lycanthropes are also said to be daelkyr creations.
Master of Illusion: Belashyrra can manipulate the eyesight of other creatures within its lair, making them see things as being several feet away from their actual locations.
A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: A daelkyr's mind is profoundly alien and incomprehensible. People who try to read one can end up going insane.
No Biological Sex: Despite their human-like appearance, daelkyr are sexless and do not reproduce.
Organic Technology: The daelkyr created many symbionts, living organisms which bond to another creature and act as tools or equipment. Examples include the tentacle whip and the living breastplate. These symbionts are often superior to their inorganic, non-magical equivalents, but often carry nasty drawbacks like being difficult to remove or attempting to brainwash their wielders.
Sealed Evil in a Can: In their home setting, the daelkyr invaded Eberron thousands of years ago, but were defeated at great cost by the Dhakaani empire and the Gatekeeper druids, who imprisoned them within the depths of Khyber. The daelkyr's minions work to undo these seals so they can be free once more.
Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Belashyrra, the aptly titled Lord of Eyes, can see through the eyes of every animal within several miles of its lair and every creature within several hundred feet of Belashyrra itself. In the animals' case, Belashyrra isn't looking through their natural eyes: the daelkyr's magic mutates these unfortunate animals so that they grow extra eyes or eyestalks through which Belashyrra can see.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Dyrrn the Corruptor can attack the minds of creatures within its lair, inflicting psychic damage and reducing their Intelligence scores.

Daelkyr Creations

The daelkyr delight in reshaping natural creatures into forms that appeal to them, resulting in horrific new servitor races.

Akleu

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Translucent pack hunters from the writhing forests of Xoriat, originally used by the daelkyr as assassins, though most akleu packs now operate on their own.

Back Stab: They can deal bonus Sneak Attack damage as a mid-level rogue.
Invisible Monsters: Downplayed. Though not fully invisible, an akleu is hard to hit due to its translucent flesh.
The Paralyzer: Their bites carry a Dexterity-damaging poison.

Dolgaunt

Classification: Aberration (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 3 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

The elites and lieutenants of daelkyr armies. Dolgaunts are made from hobgoblin stock, horribly twisted and removed of anything save their basic shape.

Bare-Fisted Monk: Dolgaunts are accomplished martial artists who attack with a mix of punches, kicks, and life-draining tentacle strikes.
Combat Tentacles: A dolgaunt has two tentacles growing from its shoulders. It uses these tentacles to constrict foes and drain the life from them.
Eyeless Face: A dolgaunt has empty eye sockets, and perceives its surroundings through the sensitive cilia that cover its skin.
Life Drain: A dolgaunt can also absorb life through its tentacles, allowing it to drain the vitality out of any creature it touches. In 5th edition, this attack heals the dolgaunt by half the damage dealt.

Dolghast

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Vertical fusions of degraded outsiders and animated dead flesh, resulting in a daeklyr servitor that is neither fully alive nor undead.

Make Them Rot: A creature hit by both a dolghast's claw attacks has to save or take additional Constitution damage as their flesh boils away.
Mortality Grey Area: Dolghasts have the "Half-Dead" extraordinary ability, giving them some benefits of the Undead creature type — immunity to a number of status effects, even odds of ignoring a Critical Hit or Back Stab damage — but they aren't subject to Turn Undead attempts. They can also heal from both positive and negative energy, but only if they succeed on a saving throw.
Two-Faced: Half their bodies are living, while the other half is undead, and the line where the two sides meet constantly "roils with rot and putrescence" as the living side's Healing Factor fights against necrosis. This not only generates dolghasts' stench, it also leaves them in constant pain, and rage and sorrow from their perpetually-decaying forms.
Weaponized Stench: Their name likely comes from their ungodly stench, which can sicken creatures who fail their saves for several minutes.

Dolgrim

Classification: Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E, 5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Dolgrims are what you get when an extraplanar horror takes two goblins and smashes them together: a four-armed, two-mouthed and two-brained monstrosity. They were bred by the daelkyr to serve as their foot soldiers.

Body Horror: Dolgrims are squat, deformed creatures, created when the daelkyr crush two goblins into one creature.
Cephalothorax: There is little distinction between a dolgrim's head and torso in most artwork.
Dual Wielding: Dolgrims frequently take advantage of their multiple arms to wield multiple weapons at once.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: A dolgrim has four arms.
Talking to Themself: It's not uncommon for dolgrims to hold conversations with themselves, with each mouth handling one side of the conversation.
Too Many Mouths: Dolgrims have two mouths which are stacked vertically.
Two Beings, One Body: A dolgrim is two goblins fused together into a single creature, and as such it has two brains in its single head. While the creature only has one personality, its two brains give it a dual consciousness which makes it harder to incapacitate with mental effects.

Dolgrue

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Hulking warriors derived from bugbear stock, dolgrue were created to be the daelkyr's heavy infantry, tearing apart other creatures in hope of easing the pain of their existence.

Agony Beam: Anything struck by a dolgrue's claw attack has to save or take additional nonlethal damage as they feel the beast's constant pain.
Ax-Crazy: Dolgrues revel in the chaos of battle and only listen to superiors' orders when magically compelled. When left to their own devices, bands of dolgrues torture and eat everything in their path.
Power Pincers: Their claws are their primary weapon, which they also use to grab and deal ongoing damage to vicitms.
Tortured Monster: A lot of the dolgrues' behavior comes from being in a state of continuous agony from their transformation, leading them to vent their rage and pain by brutalizing other creatures. Even when at peace, a dolgrue constantly groans in agony and mutters obscenities to itself in Undercommon.

Kyra

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Embodiments of Xoriat's irrational hate, kyras despise all other lifeforms, including their former masters.

Brain Monster: A kyra manifests as a massive brain with vibrating cilia, eight membranous wings, and five tentacles.
Deader than Dead: If wish, miracle or true resurrection fails to bring back someone whose soul has been absorbed by a kyra, this creature cannot be resurrected by mortal magic.
Omnicidal Maniac: Kyras blame every other creature in existence for their exile to the Material Plane, and relish the chance to catch victims in their coils.
Soul Eating: After killing an intelligent foe, a kyra can absorb its corpse and soul, growing in power and preventing resurrection.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: A kyra exudes a "profane aura" that replicates a fear spell.
Turned Against Their Masters: In their home setting, the kyras blame the daelkyr for getting them trapped on Eberron, and thus hate their former masters more than anything else.
Weakened by the Light: Kyras take Constitution damage from prolonged exposure to sunlight, and often live in vast caverns deep underground.

Opabinia

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Once tiny sea creatures, the opabinia were mutated by the daelkyr into amphibious warbeasts, though most have reverted to wild animals.

Dire Beast: It's an exaggerated version of a real (and very bizarre) prehistoric sea creature of the same name.
Monster Mouth: Theirs looks like a claw and is at the end of an armored stalk, giving opabinia an extended reach and the ability to grip and worry prey.
Weird World, Weird Food: Trolls consider opabinia a great delicacy, and attack them on sight.
Wound That Will Not Heal: Wounds dealt by their jagged mouths don't heal naturally, only curative magic like cure wounds spells (or innate regeneration or fast healing) will recover it.

Xenostelid

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 17 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Towering monsters created by the daelkyr from various skittering arthropods, to serve as living siege engines.

Artificial Hybrid: Xenostelids are the result of daelkyr fusing together giant arachnids and centipedes, which have since become a True-Breeding Hybrid.
Ax-Crazy: Xenostelids are obsessed with devouring any creature weaker than themselves.
It Can Think: They look quite monstrous, but are as intelligent as the average human, capable of outsmarting anyone who underestimates them.
Mix-and-Match Critters: A xenostelid has the head and body of a centipede, four scorpion claws, and eight spidery legs.
Projectile Webbing: Their spider heritage lets them throw webs to entrap and immobile creatures, or create sheets of sticky material that prey might blunder into.
Super-Scream: A few times each day, a xenostelid can let loose a horrible screech that deals heavy sonic damage to all nearby.
Undying Loyalty: Xenostelids worship the daelkyr as gods and obey them unquestioningly.

Xorbeast

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Glutinous horrors that can trap smaller creatures within their bulk, providing their daelkyr masters with raw materials for their fleshcrafting.

Blob Monster: Downplayed. Though not true oozes, xorbeasts' gelatinous body protects them from attacks against vital organs.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: The mere sight of an attacking xorbeast can leave other creatures shaken.
Swallowed Whole: A variant; xorbeasts can mow over and engulf smaller creatures with their amorphous bodies, potentially trapping them inside the xorbeast. Once engulfed, a victim has to save against a temporal stasis effect that can last several minutes, leaving them helpless while the monster carries them off.

Daemonlord

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 15 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

12-foot-tall champions of the dark god Chaos, summoned to bring ruin to the world of mortals.

Achilles' Heel: They have an odd one. Anyone who witnesses a daemonlord's Summoning Ritual — a blasphemous rite involving unwilling Human Sacrifice and the willing sacrifice of several undead daemon warriors — is able to overcome the fiend's Damage Reduction and ignore its Healing Factor. For this reason, daemonlords' first action upon being summoned is to slaughter everyone around them, and they hunt down anyone who they learned spied upon the fiend's arrival.
Meteor-Summoning Attack: Daemonlords know meteor swarm, and uniquely can combine this with their ability to summon various chaos wretches by having their minions spawn in the impact site.
Our Demons Are Different: They're evil outsiders from the Abyss of Krynn's cosmology, not to be confused with tanar'ri or other fiends from the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, or the yugoloths sometimes known as "daemons" from Hades and Gehenna.
The Paralyzer: Those who meet a daemonlord's horrifying gaze have to save or freeze in fear.
Sadist: Daemonlords relish the chance to cause pain, make a point of going after unwounded opponents first, and inflict slow deaths upon their victims whenever possible. They're even known to create or summon minions just to have them fight each other.
Super-Scream: They can roar every few rounds, potentially deafening those in a 60-foot cone.
Walking Wasteland: Their very presence causes foul weather, scares away mundane animals, and makes food and drink spoil.

Dagorran

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_daggoran_4e.png

^2e

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Natural Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 16 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Wasteland pack hunters who can track prey by its psychic "scent."

Art Evolution: 2nd Edition dagorrans are explicitly frog-like beasts with green crystals growing between their shoulders (with the pack's leader sporting the largest growth). 4th Edition redesigned them as scaly, wolf-like creatures instead.
Berserk Button: Dagorrans have an ancient hatred for thri-kreen, and even if just one is present among a group of enemies, the entire dagorran pack will focus on the mantis-man. This might have something to do with the thri-kreen considering dagorran flesh a delicacy.
Challenging the Chief: Dagorran packs are ruled by their strongest member, who can be challenged in a ritualized fight in which the rest of the pack circles up around the combatants. "The victor becomes the lead dagorran while the loser becomes a meal for the rest of the pack."
Crafted from Animals: Their hides are valued as armor by warriors and as a spell component by mages, while the crystals on 2E dagorrans can be used to make a variety of mind-affecting potions by both defilers and preservers. As a consequence, dagorrans' 2E entry explains that the creatures have been hunted to near-extinction.
Dig Attack: 2nd Edition dagorrans are noted to prefer to sleep through the day and hunt at night, and a well-fed pack will bury themselves in the sand with only their eyes and nostrils uncovered. If an intruder stumbles upon them, the pack leader will psychically signal an attack.
It Can Think: They're semi-intelligent, enough to understand Common, and can communicate among each other telepathically — and in 2nd Edition, they can convey "limited thoughts and ideas" to other beings.
Stuff Blowing Up: 2E dagorrans know the detonate psychokinetic power, which they aim at the ground next to opponents to blast them with shrapnel.
They Have the Scent!: Dagorrans have the uncanny ability to detect the psionic signature of sentient beings, even days after the creature in question has moved on. Some templars thus train dagorran pups to be psionic hunting hounds, helping them track down fugitives such as escaped slaves.

Dandylion

5e
Created by Jones D.-D.

Classification: Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Intelligent lions who cultivate gardens and farms in the Feywild.

Anti-Debuff: Their rejuvenating seedpods can cure other creatures of the blinded, deafened, paralyzed or poisoned conditions.
Berserk Button: Dandylions are ferociously protective of their plants, and anyone who tramples their gardens or steals their crops does so at their own peril. Thankfully, they're also susceptible to flattery, which can convince them to share their bounty.
Deadly Lunge: They have mundane big cats' ability to pounce on foes as part of a charge, potentially knocking their foe down and subjecting them to a follow-up bite attack.
Green Thumb: Dandylions are master horticulturists even without their supernatural ability to release seadpods from their tail, which can enrich soil in a small area, restoring vegetation to full health and ensuring that any crops yield twice the normal harvest for the next year. The plants they raise are valued as potion ingredients and spell components. They also know magic like druidcraft, entangle, goodberry and speak with plants.
Planimal: They look like such, though they're classified as Fey rather than Plants.
Pun-Based Creature: They're lions with plant traits, and have a puffy dandelion seedhead instead of a tuft of hair at the end of their tail. They're also somewhat dandy lions, boastful of their sunny manes, and they often weave petal necklaces from their gardens' flowers.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: When attacked, a dandylion can respond with a roar that forces their foe to save against fear.

Darfellan

Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Coast-dwelling humanoids who lived as peaceful hunter-gatherers, until a century of vicious conflict with the sahuagin drove them to near-extinction.

Apparently Human Merfolk: Downplayed; darfellans are faster in the water than on land, but like the orcas they resemble, they can't actually breathe water — instead they can hold their breath for over ten minutes.
Arch-Enemy: The surviving darfellans are brooding but normally calm, but the presence of sahuagin will drive them into a bloodthirsty fury, translating into morale bonuses on attack and damage rolls against the sea devils.
Fantastic Caste System: Darfellan society used to be divided into castes, but their near-genocide has left them with too few survivors to make that workable. Regardless, darfellans tend to categorize and refer to people based on their job or function, with their actual names being secondary concerns.
Hidden Elf Village: Even though the sahuagin have stopped actively hunting them, the darfellans still make their coastal settlements in sheltered, secluded areas, and when among other peoples will remain tight-lipped about their homes.
Man Bites Man: They have a natural bite attack that deals as much damage as a short sword.
Messianic Archetype: The darfellans fervently believe that someday a prophesized "Deep Dweller" will emerge to end their tribal existence, gather their people together, and restore their race to vitality.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: The darfellan are the descendents of were-orcas who can no longer shapeshift, but are still excellent swimmers and have distinctly orca-like body markings.

Dark Tree

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Animate cypress trees that delight in draining the blood of intelligent prey.

Gone Horribly Wrong: Dark trees are the creations of a Halruaan rogue mage named Benauril, who wanted to create some arboreal servitors. "He was delighted with the success of his experiments on the trees, until the trees turned against his will and slew him." In the 200 years since then, the dark trees have spread across the Shining South.
The Speechless: Dark trees have ogre-level intelligence, but can't speak.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: They can cast confusion as a free action once per round.
Treants: They're superficially similar to such, being (barely) mobile, intelligent tree creatures, though "anyone who sees a dark tree can almost feel the palpable hatred and evil emanating from it."
Vampiric Draining: They can bring grappled victims to their toothy maws, which deal bite damage and drain Constitution.
Weak to Fire: Subverted, unlike most plant creatures. Dark trees' wet, slimy bark makes them quite resistant to fire damage, instead their Achilles' Heel is cold.
When Trees Attack: Even rangers, druids and priests of nature deities can easily mistake a dark tree for an ordinary cypress tree when it's stationary. The main tells are their darker bark (hard to spot since dark trees prefer the shade of deep jungles), the fact that moss won't grow on them, and a pair of deep-set black eyes that are almost impossible to spot unless one knows where to look. Dark trees can survive on photosynthesis, but need to drink blood before they can reproduce by budding.

Darkenbeast

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Also known as "death horrors," these flying reptilian monsters are magically created from ordinary animals.

Cannon Fodder: As their entry explains, "darkenbeasts' primary combat 'ability' is enough toughness to soak up a great deal of damage that would otherwise be inflicted upon their masters." Since they're created from livestock or domestic animals, evil spellcasters have no shortage of replacements for these creatures, which fight without much sense of self-preservation.
Forced Transformation: These creatures are transformed from Small or Medium-sized animals with 2 Hit Dice or less, and those with an Intelligence score of 4 or lower are automatically affected with No Saving Throw.
Suicide Attack: Darkenbeasts can be "imprinted" with a spell during the creature's creation, which its master can trigger with an action. Said spell has a 1-in-4 chance of failure, and regardless of whether it's cast successfully, the darkenbeast carrying it bursts into purple flame, then reverts to its true form in death.
Weakened by the Light: The create darkenbeast spell can only be cast in darkness, and is dispelled in daylight, reverting the affected creature to its original form. In the Realms, the people of Rashemen have the saying "Would that it rained animals!" from their wish that the Red Wizards of Thay would forget to bring their darkenbeasts back before sunrise.

Darkling

Classification: Humanoid (3E), Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (dark creeper), 4 (dark stalker) (3E); 4 (dark creeper), 10 (dark stalker) (4E); 1/2 (darkling), 2 (darkling elder) (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (3E, 5E), Unaligned (4E)

Skulking humanoids who shun the light and survive as thieves and assassins.

Casting a Shadow: They can cloak themselves in shadow or cast areas in supernatural darkness.
Defeat Equals Explosion: Upon death, all the light a darkling's absorbed over its lifetime explodes out of it at once. In the case of normal darklings this can ignite their possessions and blind onlookers, while a darkling elder's death flare is intense enough to deal radiant damage to nearby creatures.
Hidden Depths: Despite their amoral trades, darklings still have a fey's appreciation for fine art, and will sometimes risk exposing themselves to a candle so they can admire a painting, or even willingly age themselves just to experience a spectacular sunset.
Large and in Charge: A darkling that transforms into an elder grows into a fair form, far taller than normal darklings.
Retcon: In 3rd Edition, "dark ones" are an enigmatic group of subterranean humanoids, while 4th Edition speculates they're descended from halflings lost to the Shadowfell, but in 5th Edition "darklings" are described as the descendants of a cursed house of seelie fey whose ancestor betrayed the Summer Queen. Of course, since darklings display the same dimorphism and abilities as the dark ones, and similarly like to lair in caves beneath humanoid settlements, it's easy to accept that in-universe sources have simply learned more about these light-hating humanoids.
Super-Senses: They don't just have darkvision to see in darkness, they have full-on blindsight, allowing them to operate in even supernatural darkness.
Weakened by the Light: As a darkling's body absorbs light, it rapidly ages. For this reason, darklings cover themselves from head to toe when exposure to light is a risk. The smaller ones also have disadvantage on rolls when in bright light.

Darklore

Origin: Planescape
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Sentient, sinister oozes that hunger for dark knowledge, which they extract from their victims.

Casting a Shadow: Darklores can cast darkness at will.
Creating Life Is Unforeseen: The darklores were spawned when an ancient creation of the yugoloths, the Maeldur Et Kavurik, fell into the memory-sapping waters of the River Styx. This resulted in a great splash of foul water that had absorbed the Maeldur's dark knowledge, which combined with Et Kavurik's essence gave rise to the first (and hopefully only) darklores. The oozes have since spread from the Gray Waste of Hades across the Lower Planes, attacking fiends and travelers near the River Styx.
Ingesting Knowledge: As a darklore drains Intelligence from victims it strikes with its pseudopods, the ooze absorbs forbidden secrets and vile knowledge to hoard — the location of a gate to the Lower Planes, the true name of an archfiend, details about an evil artifact, etc. Darklores can also reverse this process when striking Good or Neutral foes, potentially stunning them with a horrific revelation (and giving paladins a 1% chance of falling from grace). This means archfiends both fear and covet darklores, and have been known to capture the creatures to use them as interrogators, or charm them to make darklores willingly share some of the secrets they've accumulated.
Seers: They can use clairvoyance and clairaudience at will, though mainly to help find prey.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Besides damage, darklores' physical attacks deal Intelligence drain, some of which is permanent. The catch is that since this ability is contingent on the victim having some dark knowledge to be consumed, Evil creatures are always affected, Neutral creatures are affected 50% of the time, Good creatures are only affected 25% of the time, and beings of pure Good such as celestials may be wholly immune to the effect.
Teleportation: Darklores also have the ability to teleport beings whose names they know, provided those names constitute a dark secret. Some archfiends will thus surrender their names to a darklore, taking a point of permanent Intelligence drain (and usually having a minion remind the archfiend what their name is afterward) in exchange for being able to teleport without error at will.

Darkmantle

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Shadow Magical Beast (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 8 (4E), 1/2 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Subterranean creatures resembling squid. They drop from cave ceilings and latch onto the head of any creature which passes underneath them.

Casting a Shadow: They can cast the area around them in supernatural darkness, which doesn't hamper the darkmantle any due to its blindsight.
Combat Tentacles: Darkmantles attack by dropping onto its prey and wrapping its tentacles around the neck to suffocate it.
He Was Right There All Along: A darkmantle clings to cavern ceilings, remaining perfectly still as it waits for creatures to pass beneath it. From a distance, it can pass itself off as a stalactite, until it drops down, engulfs and crushes its prey.
Super-Senses: Darkmantles can use echolocation to "see," which works in areas of magical darkness, but not areas under a silence effect.

Darktentacles

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

A molluscoid swamp-dwelling monster named for its mass of tentacles, which can reach twenty feet in length.

Barrier Warrior: As if their tentacle attacks weren't enough, darktentacles can also use wall of force once per day. For this reason, darktentacles' flesh, eyes and ichor are sometimes used as material components for similar spells.
Charm Person: They can use charm monster three times per day.
Combat Tentacles: Darktentacles can make twelve tentacle slam attacks per round, but the tendrils are also dexterous enough that they can wield weapons.
Extra Eyes: Their tentacles are studded with small, shielded eyes.
He Was Right There All Along: Though their rubbery bodies are about ten feet wide, darktentacles are adept at flattening their central mass to help hide in even shallow water.
Mind over Matter: They can use hold monster up to five times per day.
Super-Senses: Their numerous eyes provide darkvision, while the darktentacles also has tremorsense to detect anything in contact with the ground up to sixty feet away.
Tentacle Rope: Fully capable of grappling and constricting multiple foes at once.

Darkweaver

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Aberration (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E, 5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Chaotic Evil (5E)

Sinister predators from the Plane of Shadow, who entrap their victims in webs of darkness.

Casting a Shadow: In addition to knowing darkness, darkweavers shroud themselves in semisolid shadowstuff for additional armor. But their signature ability is creating long strands of unnatural shadow that have an oily chill to them, and slither away from light sources like snakes. Beyond obscuring vision, these shadow strands resist movement, so that once a creature enters the web of darkness, they have to succeed at a Strength check to move in any direction other than directly toward the darkweaver at the center of the web.
Food as Bribe: 5th Edition paints darkweavers as gourmands who view the Great Wheel as a cosmic buffet — "Whether its fare is a demon, an archon, a struggling halfling, or a catatonic mule, all such meals are culinary delights for a darkweaver." As such, a captive might be able to delay their consumption by vividly describing their own culinary experiences, or even win their freedom by promising to return with a savory spice or rare meal. "Those who manage to escape a darkweaver should think twice about returning to the creature's lair, though, as darkweavers prioritize their appetites over bargains."
Giant Spider: They appear vaguely as such, though with tentacles rather than legs.
It Can Think: Despite their alien appearance, darkweavers are highly intelligent and capable of conversing in Common, Abyssal or Infernal. They also enjoy dominating other creatures, and may gift nearby predators or tribes of savage humanoids with helpless prey until those other creatures become reliant on the darkweaver.
Non-Health Damage: Their bites deal heavy Strength damage, and in fact darkweavers feed by sapping their victim's strength.
Shadow Walker: They can teleport between shadowy areas as per dimension door.
Weakened by the Light: Darkweavers unsurprisingly dislike natural and magical sunlight, and take morale penalties on rolls while so illuminated. In their AD&D rules, light-based magic can also destroy darkweavers' shadow strands, while more powerful spells like sunburst can blast away the monster's shadowstuff armor for several hours.

Deadborn Vulture

Classification: Magical Beast to Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

These giant fliers have been corrupted by evil spellcasters into loyal mounts that continue to serve even after death.

Breath Weapon: A living deadborn vulture can blast other creatures with its foul breath, once per day. This functions as a conical breath weapon that nauseates victims.
Clipped-Wing Angel: While a deadborn vulture's disease grows more potent after it dies, in most ways becoming a zombie is a step down for it, as it's limited to a single action per turn, and becomes so stupid that it's liable to land to continue fighting instead of continuing flyby attacks from the air.
Deceased and Diseased: Even a living deadborn vulture's claw attacks are so filthy that they carry a Strength-damaging disease, but once it transitions into a zombie, the save DC for that disease goes up.
Reviving Enemy: A variant. If a living deadborn vulture is slain, it instantly becomes a deadborn vulture zombie, a transition so seamless that it doesn't interrupt the creature's flying. Once the zombie runs out of hit points, it's done for good.

Deadly Dancer

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Whirling, blade-limbed humanoids who revere the similarly-shaped vestige Paimon.

Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Deadly dancers reproduce by breaking off one of their armblades in the corpse of a freshly-killed, Medium-sized creature — the blade will grow into a full-sized new deadly dancer over the course of ten days. But sacrificing a blade-limb like this lessens a deadly dancer's effectiveness in combat, and the resulting wound gives them even odds of bleeding to death without magical intervention, so the creatures only reproduce if their troupe's destruction seems otherwise certain.
Blade Below the Shoulder/Armed Legs: A deadly dancer's limbs end in bony blades, but it's adept at balancing and spinning on any of them.
Dance Battler: They whirl and leap and tumble while in combat, slashing at nearby foes with an Improved Whirlwind Attack as they dance through a group of enemies.
No Mouth: Unlike Paimon himself, deadly dancers' faces lack mouths, leading them to "eat" by absorbing blood through pores in their bone-blades.
Starfish Language: They have no mouths or telepathic ability, but communicate with one another by dancing. Deadly dancers are smart enough to learn to understand other languages, however.
Was Once a Man: The prevailing theory about their origins is that they were human or elven binders who called up Paimon too many times.

Death Dog

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 1 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Savage, two-headed canines who may be descended from the legendary Cerberus.

Multiple Head Case: Death dogs have two heads each, which makes them that much harder to charm or knock unconscious. It also provides another obstacle for trainers hoping to use them as guard animals like their supposed ancestor.
Poisonous Person: Their saliva carries a foul disease that can deal both Strength and Constitution damage in 3rd Edition, or reduce a victim's hit point total in 5th Edition, potentially killing them.
Savage Wolves: Death dogs are driven by hate, and possess a taste for humanoid flesh.

Death Embrace

Origin: Critical Role
Classification: Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Gigantic, magical jellyfish found in the Netherdeep, an extraplanar abyssal trench.

Combat Tentacles: A death embrace is surrounded by six 60-foot-long tentacles, which grasp and petrify prey.
Human Shield: The death embrace uses creatures it caught in its tentacles as shields to absorb attacks.
Taken for Granite: Creatures restrained in a death embrace's tentacles are slowly turned into stone.

Death Knight

Classification: Undead (3E-5E)
Challenge Rating: Base creature's +3 (3E), 17 (4E, 5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil, Evil (4E)

Death knights are powerful and intelligent undead warriors. Often they were skilled warriors in life, and were reanimated by dark forces who had need of their martial prowess.

The Atoner: Rarely, but still happens. Some death knights are specifically made Undead by their gods until they atone for some sin. Most are evil creatures who turned undead voluntarily, however.
Dem Bones: Death knights are always skeletons, since the process involves burning away your flesh in Hellfire.
Fallen Hero: A lot of death knights are fallen heroes and paladins. The most iconic of their kind, lord Soth, has a long and tragic story of jealousy and lust that led to his fall. 5th edition has them as fallen paladins who died without seeking atonement and were trapped in an undead purgatory by unknown powers until they redeem themselves.
Genius Bruiser: What makes a Death Knight such a formidable foe is that they aren't idiots. Most of them were powerful Magic Knight warriors in life, and upon being entered into the service of a darker power, have become only stronger. Notably their lowest stat as of 5E is a 11 Dex, and their Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, are still higher than one might expect, all of which are at least +1.
Magic Knight: Death knights wield formidable magic in addition to their deadly martial skills. Characters who try to stay out of a death knight's reach and attack it from afar will be in for a nasty surprise when it hurls a ball of hellfire at them.
Moral Event Horizon: In-Universe. Earlier editions specified that becoming a Death Knight required someone to commit an unspeakbly evil act, something that would get even demon cultists to shun you. And it must be done by your sword.
Resurrective Immortality: In 5e, a slain Death Knight will eventually return to unlife, with the only way to truly move on being redemption.
Soul Jar: In 4th edition, a death knight's soul is bound to a specific weapon in much the same way that a lich's soul is bound to a phylactery. Depriving a death knight of its weapon weakens it.
Warrior Undead: Deathknights are sapient undead warriors who retain the weapon and armor proficiencies they had in life, have tremendous strength, and ride nightmares.

Death Linen

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Bedsheets, pillowcases and other cloth items that have become animate and murderous.

Achilles' Heel: While death linens take next to no damage from blunt weapons, they're Weak to Fire and slowed by at least a gallon of water being sloshed on them.
Animate Inanimate Object: They are cloth objects given life by nightmares.
Back from the Dead: Even if a death linen is reduced to zero hit points, there's a 10% chance each month that its life force might infect a new set of sheets — "After all, we all sleep, and we often have nightmares, which strengthen the strange beings." But if a year passes without a death linen returning, its life force dissipates.
Mistaken for Undead: While they resemble Bedsheet Ghosts, they're literally animated bedsheets rather than undead, and thus cannot be turned by priests or harmed by holy water.
Poltergeist: Death linens are normal bedsheets that have become "infected with latent psychic forces born of nightmares," causing them to move and attack living creatures.
Sinister Suffocation: If a death linen rolls high enough while attacking, it can begin to suffocate its target.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: The flopping, gyrating but disturbingly human form of an attacking death linen forces witnesses to save or flee in terror.

Death's Head Tree

Origin: Ravenloft
Classification: Plant (3E, 5E) and Undead (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E); 1/2 (death's head), 2 (tree) (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Willow-like trees that grow where blood has been shed, sprouting macabre fruit that resemble humanoid heads.

Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Prior to 5th Edition, these plants reproduce by having their death's heads bite or spit at (in 3E) living creatures, implanting seeds into their flesh. Since those seeds are coated in a low-grade anesthetic, victims might not notice they've been implanted, until they start taking cumulative damage for each day the seeds have taken root. Unless magic or surgery is used to remove the seed, the victim will die and a new death's head tree will begin growing in their corpse.
Flying Face: A death's head tree's "fruit" can detach and fly about (buoyed by foul natural gases, in 2E and 3E) to defend the tree or find new hosts, becoming an independent Undead creature. 5th Edition has several varieties of death's head available, from standard gnashing humanoid heads, to aberrant heads with a "mind-bending bite," to heads with a petrifying bite... meaning that yes, you can recreate Castlevania's infamous flying medusa heads.
Luring in Prey: The "fruit" of a death's head tree softly call for help in the language of the victim the tree sprouted from.
Morphic Resonance: Rumor has it that the heads of these trees resemble the visages of whoever's blood nurtured it.
Stationary Enemy: While death's head trees can move their branches to attack foes, they can't uproot themselves and move about like other animate trees.
Weak to Fire: Averted; unlike most plants, death's head trees are immune to fire damage, making their wood useful to make fire-resistant magic items.

Deathbringer

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 17 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

These ogre-sized undead exist only to destroy, and often serve as generals leading armies of the living dead.

Dispel Magic: Deathbringers can use greater dispelling at will.
Epic Flail: They're armed with a pair of heavy flails, which they like to use to trip foes.
Make Them Rot: Every few rounds, deathbringers can create a burst of negative energy to harm the living and heal the undead.
Mouth Stitched Shut: Along with their eyes. Strangely, deathbringers are still capable of speech, somehow.
Trampled Underfoot: They're big enough to make trample attacks against Medium-sized opponents.

Deathcoils

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Fearsome and cunning serpents who can grow up to 80 feet long.

Breath Weapon: Twice per day they can exhale a cone of sleep gas that also deals a bit of Constitution damage.
Crafted from Animals: Deathcoils' scaly hides, though hard and slippery, are valued for not losing their supple sheen for centuries, and are sometimes used in furniture-making. However, the difficulty in hunting the beasts means that their hides are usually only found in the homes of royalty.
Eye of Newt: The yuan-ti use deathcoils blood as a secret ingredient in one of their osssra, alchemical mixtures that provide various effects when burned and inhaled as smoke. The mixture in question, duthlah'hass, puts Scaled Ones into a state of "dreamsleep" that helps them recover memories with perfect clarity or receive messages from their deities. Humanoids describe the smoke as "nose-clearing" and smelling of burning moss or sizzling seaweed, and have to save to avoid becoming feebleminded and taking Dexterity damage after inhaling it.
The Great Serpent: They're certifiably Huge snakes, though despite their size, they lack a "Swallow Whole" attack.
It Can Think: While Faerûnian folklore can exaggerate deathcoils' intelligence, the fact remains that they're as smart as the average human, and dangerously cunning when they hunt. They've been known to scatter treasure to lure humanoids into an ambush, drag prey wrapped in their coils into a river to drown, sink boats and pin the wrecks with rocks to create sunken larders, chase prey over cliffs to create a pile of broken corpses for easy feeding between hunts, or sneak out of the forest at night to eat livestock.
Super-Persistent Predator: Deathcoils are "relentless" hunters, known to chase prey that eludes or wounds them for miles.

Deathlock

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d2e4ab092318002e144d3410c95e8538.png

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E); 4 (deathlock), 8 (deathlock mastermind), 3 (deathlock wight) (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Deathlocks are warlocks who made pacts with evil patrons in life and have been reanimated to continue serving their dark masters in death.

Deal with the Devil: By definition, every deathlock was a warlock who pledged to serve an evil patron in return for tremendous arcane power. They serve as a textbook case of why this sort of thing is a bad idea, as now not even death will release them from their servitude.
Evil Sorcerer: Deathlocks wield a small arsenal of warlock spells and are wholly evil. While they may not be able to sling as many spells as a lich or a mummy lord, they can still pepper you with eldritch blasts after they run out of spell slots.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a portmanteau of Death and Warlock.
Make Them Rot: The touch of a deathlock induces necrosis. In addition, the unique grave bolt spell which deathlock wights and masterminds can cast blasts its targets (and in the mastermind's case, ensnares them) with flesh-rotting tendrils of darkness.
The Punishment: Transformation into a deathlock is not a reward. It is inflicted upon warlocks who failed their patrons or tried to break their pacts, twisting them into undead things which have had most of their free will stripped away and now exist solely to carry out their master's whims.
Undying Loyalty: A deathlock's mind is overpowered by an urge to serve its master's desires. All other goals and ambitions that don't please its patron disappear.

Deathshrieker

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 15 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These undead embody the dying screams of those who met slow, agonizing ends, and can be found on old battlefields, charnel houses and sites of plague.

Achilles' Heel: Deathshriekers do not just hate quiet, they're actually harmed by a silence spell.
Defeat Equals Explosion: If destroyed, a deathshrieker lets out one last scream affecting everyone within a 300-foot radius, forcing them to save against Level Drain.
Intangibility: Incorporeal undead.
Non-Health Damage: Their touch attacks deal Charisma drain.
Super-Scream: A deathshrieker's signature ability is a soul-numbing scream that goes on for several rounds, with increasingly dangerous effects — first victims are deafened, then they're stunned, and finally they suffer an insanity effect.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Anyone who sees a deathshrieker has to save to avoid being paralyzed with fear.
Talkative Loon: They constantly babble the last words of those who have died around them.
Whispering Ghosts: Areas these undead inhabit are prone to disturbing noises like the pained whispers of the dead, which can persist for years even after the deathshrieker's destruction.

Decapus

Origin: Mystara
Classification: Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E), Unaligned (5E)

Large, arboreal predators that use their ten tentacles to move through the trees and grab prey.

Adaptational Dumbass: 2E decapuses are as intelligent as humans, enough to have an alignment, but 5E makes them more animalistic predators.
Starfish Language: In 2E, they have "a complex language of clickng sounds and body movement."
Tentacled Terror: Ten-tentacled terrors, to be precise. It's mentioned that a decapus can use one tentacle to hang from a branch, leaving the rest of their limbs free for combat, though 5th Edition restricts them to a single "tentacles" attack that deals less damage if the creature is currently on the ground or busy grappling something. As for the "terror" part, 2nd Edition notes that decapuses' "savagery is legendary," and the creatures eagerly prey upon the likes of elves and humans.
Terrestrial Sea Life: They're basically tree octopi.
Underground Monkey: Some decapuses dwell in the ocean, where they compete with the likes of sharks for dominance of their territory.

Deep Gnome

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 1/2 (5E)
Playable: 2E, 3E, 5E
Alignment: Neutral Good

Properly svirfneblin, these gnomes dwell in hidden enclaves within the Underdark, concerned with their own survival and avoiding the attention of their dangerous neighbors. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Deep Imaskari

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: True Neutral

The scions of the ancient empire of Imaskar, who fled deep into the Underdark and adapted themselves to life underground.

Beneath the Earth: Their home of Deep Imaskar is an Underground City in the Lowerdark, fully 10 miles beneath the surface. The city itself is sustained by magic, from the Great Seal that gives a suggestion to everyone on Faerûn that the Imaskari are extinct, to the subjective gravity that lets the locals build along the walls of the three-mile-long cavern.
Human Subspecies: Deep Imaskari are humans who have lived underground for thousands of years.
Innate Night Vision: Downplayed; they have low-light vision, which is a step above normal human vision, but falls short of the darkvision enjoyed by most Underdark races.
Mage Species: As the survivors of a magocracy, deep Imaskari have a passion for magic, so that one surefire way to win their friendship is the gift of a new spell or piece of arcane lore. They have a racial bonus to Intelligence, favor the wizard class, and have the "Spell Clutch" ability to retain a 1st-level spell after casting it, once per day.
Retired Monster: Imaskar was a godless empire that subjugated eastern Faerûn for thousands of years, before falling to a divinely-incited Slave Revolt. A population of survivors fled deep underground to found a new homeland, protected by a Great Seal, and kept to themselves for four millennia. Now that the Great Seal has been breached, the deep Imaskari are beginning to venture out to explore the outside world, seeking communication and commerce rather than conquest. They're guarded and detached, but curious about other creatures... though wary of Mulhorandi and Untheri, the descendants of the slaves who overthrew ancient Imaskar.
Rock Monster: Subverted; deep Imaskari's skin looks like fine marble, but it's just as soft as normal human flesh. Their skin tone does help them blend in with rocky environments, however.
You Can't Go Home Again: Those who leave Deep Imaskar are unable to return, as they have their memory of its location wiped from their minds, to keep it safe even if a deep Imaskari falls into the clutches of mind-reading foes like illithids.

Deep Scion

Classification: Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Krakens or other terrors of the deep may rescue people from drowning at sea, or abduct them from their homes, solely to offer a sinister ultimatum: serve or die. Those who accept are given the power to shift into an aquatic hybrid form, then sent to infiltrate coastal settlements on behalf of their new masters.

Fish People: Well, kraken-people — deep scions' hybrid forms are more about tentacles than fins and scales.
Volo: If you meet a human and there's something fishy about them, they might be a deep scion. Or a crook, or just a fishmonger. Sometimes fish stink is just fish stink.
Super-Scream: Deep scions can let out a terrible scream which ravages the minds of nearby creatures with psionic energy, potentially stunning them. This scream also transmits a record of the deep scion's most recent memories to its master, but only if it screams while underwater.
Tentacled Terror: Deep scions' hybrid forms are depicted as having a dozen squidlike tentacles growing from the backs of their head, though they don't use them for combat.
This Was His True Form: When a deep scion is killed, it reverts back into its original humanoid form.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Deep scions can freely switch between their original humanoid forms and the half-humanoid, half-piscine form bestowed upon them by their dark masters, which is amphibious and moves better through the water than on land.

Deepspawn

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Large, spherical creatures studded with eyes and tentacles, notorious for their ability to produce more monstrosities.

Clone Army: Deconstructed by the deepspawn themselves. In one instance, the shield dwarves used deepspawn to create an army of clones, which caused problems when those copies integrated with dwarven society after the Spawn Wars. The implied result is that genetic variety amongst the shield dwarves crashed, contributing to their fertility issues in later eras, something that took literal Divine Intervention to fix.
Combat Tentacles: Three of their tentacles have eyeless maws on them, three more can make slap attacks but are also dexterous enough to wield weapons.
Fantastic Livestock: Dwarven settlements in the Realms sometimes keep captive deepspawn as a food source, feeding them livestock so the aberrations will make numerous copies of meat animals. This can easily backfire on the deepspawn-keepers, if one of their captive monsters ever manages to sink its teeth into something more dangerous than cattle.
It Can Think: Despite their monstrous appearance, deepspawn are highly intelligent.
Mook Maker: A deepspawn's signature ability is being able to create spawn based on any living, Material Plane being (so no outsiders, elementals or undead) they've consumed. These spawn are born in less than four days and emerge fully-grown and ready for action. They retain only faint memories of their previous existence, and their alignment and intelligence are the same as the original creature, but the spawn are wholly loyal to their creator and cannot even be magically compelled to attack them. In other words, deepspawn are the answer to the question "What is an X doing in this dungeon?"
Pooled Funds: Deepspawn have a habit of burying themselves beneath a pile of treasure, which gives them the benefits of surprise and confusion (enemies may think its tentacle attacks are coming from separate creatures), and also a bonus to Armor Class from the hard metal covering its central body.
Tentacle Rope: If they aren't wielding weapons, their tentacles can be used to grapple and constrict.

Defacer

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Featureless undead humanoids that are surrounded by wailing spirits, and temporarily steal the likenesses of their victims.

The Blank: Beneath the spirits bound to them, defacers have perfectly featureless faces.
Face Stealer: Anyone slain by a defacer's slam attack, or whose corpse is touched by the creature, has their face vanish from their body, while the defacer's visage changes into that of their latest victim. For the defacer, this change lasts for 24 hours, or until they use their earth glide ability to pass through stone.
Status Infliction Attack: A defacer's slam attack can stun victims for a round - during this time, the stunned creature's face twists into that of one of the defacer's prior victims, which screams for help and release.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: The constantly-keening spirits that surround a defacer make any creature within 60 feet of it shaken, with No Saving Throw.
Your Soul Is Mine!: Those who have succumbed to or had their corpses defiled by a defacer are bound to the monster, joining the cloud of keening spectral faces orbiting it. This prevents the use of the speak with dead spell or resurrection magic until the defacer is destroyed. On the upside, if someone is slain by a defacer but the monster is in turn destroyed within a day of the deed, that previous victim will return to life so long as their body is mostly intact.

Delver

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Huge, slug-like burrowing creatures with a taste for rock and metals.

Acid Attack: Delvers are coated in a corrosive slime which deals increasing damage to metallic or stony creatures or objects.
Alien Catnip: Metal intoxicates delvers, and some become addicted enough to menace miners or anyone carrying metal equipment.
Dig Attack: If delvers are expecting trouble, they honeycomb an area with thin-walled tunnels, which they can then burst through to attack enemies.
Eat Dirt, Cheap: Delvers primarily feed on stone, and can also enjoy various non-metallic minerals like gems, so adventurers who speak Terran or Undercommon can sometimes exchange minor treasure for information.
Fast Tunneling: Fast compared to mundane diggers, anyway - delvers have a fairly slow 10-foot burrow speed, but leave behind 10-foot-wide tunnels that can be used by other creatures.
Gentle Giant: Despite their size, delvers are usually shy and inoffensive, and have little reason to attack organic entities. Though they will make meals out of earth elementals and creatures like xorns.
Mooks Ate My Equipment: The acid that covers a delver's body can dissolve weapons that strike them, or the armor and clothing of creatures they attack.

Demodand

From left to right, a farastu, kelubar and shator (3e)

Classification: Outsider (3E), Fiend (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E), Neutral Evil (3E, 5E)

Also known as gehreleths, these cruel fiends are native to the Tarterian Depths of Carceri, and are simultaneously inmates and the self-appointed wardens of that prison plane.

Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: AD&D notes that while gehreleths are merciless towards outsiders, they never attack each other, and have a stable society built upon raw power.
Association Fallacy: 3E mentions that demodands have no reason to bother non-petitioners on Carceri, but unfortunately for planar visitors, "If a creature is on Carceri, the demodands think it belongs there, and thus they see that keeping it there is their duty."
Demon of Human Origin: 2E states that gehreleths are born when mortals perish on the Lower Planes, prompting the dark power they worship, Apomps the Three-Sided One, to convert the cadaver into a new gehreleth.
Enemy Summoner: Like other races of Outsiders, demodands have a chance to summon others of their kind, to various degrees of success. But their AD&D rules put an interesting spin on the notion by additionally making gehreleths the "summoning stock" of the Lower Planes, so that a mortal summoner might accidentally call up one of them rather than a baatezu or tanar'ri. This is a bad thing, since gehreleths hate servitude, hold grudges, and are capable of disobeying their summoner. It also mentions that the shator like to write magical texts explaining how to summon specific denizens of the Lower Planes, particularly fiends whom the author dislikes.
Fat Bastard: Kelubars and shators are obese, partly because they live fairly sedentary lives.
No-Sell: Demodands as a race are immune to acid and poison, and enjoy a permanent freedom of movement effect that lets them ignore difficult terrain or magical effects to reduce their speed.
Noodle Incident: What exactly led to the demodands' exile to Carceri has been lost in the mists of time, but the kelubars and shators agree that it was the farastus' fault.
Sadist: Demodands have no interest in corrupting mortals, ruling the world, or imposing their particular notion of evil upon the cosmos. Their only real desire is to make others suffer in various ways.

Farastu

Challenge Rating: 11 (3E, 5E)

The least and most common of the demodands, who when they aren't pushing around weaker creatures can be found serving their stronger kin, or hunting down escapees from Carceri.

The Berserker: In 3E, farastus can fly into a berserk rage during combat, which gives them a chance to vent their frustrations from being at the bottom of the demodand pecking order.
The Chain of Harm: They have to endure the hatred and disdain of their kin, which makes them all the more arrogant and cruel when those stronger demodands aren't around.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Farastus are barely tolerated by other demodands, who blame them for landing the race in Carceri.
Sticky Situation: Farastus ooze a tarlike slime that can aid in grapples, or cause attackers' weapons to get stuck fast when they strike the fiend.

Kelubar

Challenge Rating: 13 (3E, 5E)

The middle rung of demodand society, kelubars serve as bureaucrats, or supervisors for squads of farastus.

Acid Attack: Kelubar skin is coated in a pale green acidic slime.
Back Stab: In 3E, kelubars can deal Sneak Attack damage like a mid-level rogue, which makes their ability to cast invisibility at will all the more dangerous.
Weaponized Stench: Kelubars' slime is so foul that it can nauseate other creatures within 30 feet.

Shator

Challenge Rating: 16 (3E, 5E)

The corpulet shators rule what society exists on Carceri, managing the plane's prisoners and extending its influence to other worlds.

Large and in Charge: The Large (and horribly obese) shators are at the top of the demodands' pecking order.
Instant People: Just Add Water!: A liquid variant; shators have the weird ability to reduce willing farastus and kelebars to pools of tar and slime that can then be collected into flasks, each housing its own fiend. Demodands stored in this way will keep for centuries, and will be revived the instant someone opens their flask.
The Paralyzer: A shator's slime acts as a paralytic neurotoxin.
Wardens Are Evil: Shators are unusually cruel wardens of Carceri, and secretly hope those that are bound to the plane will attempt to escape, just so they can hunt the fugitives down.

Demon

A balor and marilith (3e)

Classification: Outsider (3E), Elemental Magical Beast (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: Varies by type
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Destructive fiends from the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, the demonic hordes embody the Chaotic Evil alignment. See the Demons subpage for more information about them.

Demonhive

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (demonet swarm, attendant), 6 (queen) (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Insectoid fiends that originated in the Abyss, but have since spread across the Lower Planes.

Attack! Attack! Attack!: While foraging, demonhive attendants attack anything larger than a non-demonic insect.
Bee People: The demonhive is a species of eusocial, insectile fiends, with a reproductive queen giving birth to thousands of demonets, most of which grow up to be male attendants. Females remain immature as long as the queen lives; after this, they grow up and establish their own hive.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: Individual demonets are the size of rats, attendants the size of dogs, while the bloated demonhive queens are 10 feet wide.
Hive Caste System: Demonhive members are divided into three castes: demonets that gather in swarms, male attendants that hunt for the hive, and the hive's queen.
Hive Mind: All demonhive members within two miles of a queen are in constant communication.
Mama Bear: A demonhive queen lets out a "maternal scream" as her demonet swarms are killed, dealing sonic damage to anything within 60 feet (which won't affect other demonhive creatures, since they're immune to sonic damage).
Monstrous Cannibalism: When food runs out, a demonhive queen begins to starve, and starts to kill an attendant each day. The queen does not eat the corpse but instead leaves it for demonets and other attendants to feed on.
The Swarm: Demonets operate as such, allowing them to swarm around and distract enemies with the mind-numbing droning of their wings.
Turns Red: Should a demonhive queen enter negative hit points, her attendants fly into a frenzy similar to a haste effect.
Wolfpack Boss: A demonhive is intended to be encountered as a unit, and part of the challenge comes from how the hive's components support each other with their abilities. Optimally, the adventurers will defeat the attendants first, then the queen, and finally mop up the swarms.

Demonthorn Mandrake

Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Evil, intelligent, predatory plants common across the Lower Planes, or protecting the lairs of evil cultists on the Material Plane.

Combat Tentacles: In melee, these plants make slam attacks with their bristly vines.
Facial Horror: For a ranged attack, a demonthorn mandrake can spit a spore pod out to 30 feet, which then explodes in a 10-foot-radius burst. Any living creatures in the blast radius take damage as thorny growths burst from their faces, and then have to save or take Damage Over Time from the thorns until they're either pulled out (dealing additional damage) or cleansed with a vial of holy water.
It Can Think: Demonthorn mandrakes are smarter than ogres but dumber than humans, capable of following a summoner's orders, but are unable to speak themselves. As predatory plants, they don't have anything in the way of a society, either.
Monster Lord: Somewhere in the Abyss is the Mother Seed, the largest demonthorn mandrake in the Great Wheel, whom lesser mandrakes obey without question.
Perpetual-Motion Monster: Unlike normal plants, demonthorn mandrakes don't require water or light to survive, only the flesh of their victims. If they go a month without feeding, the plants enter a state of dormancy that can last for years, until their roots detect the presence of nearby creatures via tremorsense.
The Virus: Should a creature succumb to a demonthorn mandrake's spores, a fully-grown plant will sprout from the corpse in a matter of hours.
You Will Not Evade Me: The plants can extend their roots out to a 30 foot radius, immobilizing themselves but also potentially entangling prey. While a demonthorn mandrake's roots are extended and exposed, they emit humanlike screams.

Derro

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 13 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Small, cruel, and thoroughly mad humanoids who infest certain corners of the Underdark, where their insane paranoia serves them well.

Cain and Abel: The derro's mythic history describes the brothers Diirinka and Diinkarazan, and how Diirinka betrayed his sibling to steal magical power from a pursuing enemy. This is not portrayed as a tragedy, but rather as a lesson on the importance of survival at any cost, and how deceitfulness and cruelty can be useful.
Half-Human Hybrid: 2nd and 3rd Edition cast derro as dwarf-human hybrids, so that "Their features remind dwarves of humans, and vice versa."
Have a Gay Old Time: In Australia, "Derro" (derived from "derelict") is slang for a homeless person, a tramp; a social derelict, especially an alcoholic.
Insanity Immunity: 3rd Edition derro are immune to confusion or insanity effects because they're already quite mad, thank you very much. Only a wish or miracle spell can cure their racial insanity.
Made a Slave: They often take slaves to help support their communities, and in 2nd Edition will regularly wage a "Uniting War" against other races of the Underdark in part to spread rumors that might draw surface civilizations to send scouts and adventurers into the Underdark — "The derro welcome this new source of slaves."
The Morlocks: Their 5th Edition backstory sets them up as this to dwarves, being a degenerate splinter race of near-feral subterranean humanoids. Not that the duergar or surface dwarves recognize derro as kin.
Our Dwarves Are Different: They're often classified as a dwarven subrace.
The Paranoiac: Derro are inherently paranoid, which is fully justified in the dangerous Underdark. However, their racial insanity makes it impossible for them to form communities more advanced than cults of personality centered on their spellcasting savants.
Retcon: Their backstory varies by edition.
- 2nd Edition describes derro as having lived in the Underdark for ages, but only relatively recently have other races encountered them. 3rd Edition elaborates only slightly, saying the derro were created by "some nameless deity of darkness and madness" from dwarf and human stock.
- 4th Edition casts derro as the "warped descendants of a mad, power-hungry civilization that nearly ripped apart the planes when the world was still young," cast into the Underdark by the World Serpent in an attempt to stop them from opening portals to the Far Realm.
- In 5th Edition, the derro are instead relatives of the duergar, former slaves of the illithids who responded particularly badly to their masters' psionic experiments.
Weakened by the Light: In 5th Edition, derro suffer penalties on rolls made in sunlight, while in 2nd and 3rd Edition, derro will sicken and eventually die if exposed to too much sunlight.

Desiccator

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Former water elementals that have been reduced to shriveled, parched undead remnants.

Breath Weapon: They can blast opponents with a short cone of desiccating air that deals Constitution damage.
Elemental Embodiment: They used to be water elementals.
Horror Hunger: They have an inescapable craving for water, satisfied by attacking living creatures.
Life Drain: Their melee attacks also fatigue victims as they're dehydrated, which gives the desiccator some temporary hit points.
Non-Human Undead: You can't get less human than an undead elemental.
Oxymoronic Being: They are former water elementals that are now solid, dry, and horribly thirsty.

Desmodu

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Good

Ogre-sized, bat-like humanoids who dwell within the Underdark's largest caverns. Unlike most underground races, they aren't dangerous unless attacked.

Attack Animal/Horse of a Different Color: They breed varieties of bat for use as hunting animals or guards, or Huge specimens they can ride.
Bat People: They're hulking humanoids with bat faces and leathery membranes between their long arms and short legs, though while they're excellent climbers, desmodus are unable to fly or glide.
Double Weapon: The desmodus' signature weapon is the notbora, a Huge quarterstaff with a crook on one end for tripping attacks, an unsheathable blade on the other, and a hinge in the middle for easy storage.
Gadgeteer Genius: Despite living fairly simply, desmodus have developed numerous clever tools and alchemical items, from breathing masks and steel cables and climbing harnesses, to a substance called "frostfire" that is essentially a cold-based variant of alchemist's fire.
Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Most sages assumed that the drow had wiped them out in an ancient war.
Running on All Fours: Desmodus are normally bipedal, but can double their speed by galloping on all fours.
Speaks Fluent Animal: They can talk with bats as per speak with animals.
Starfish Language: Desmodu involves both ultra- and subsonic utterances, so not many other species can speak it.
Super-Scream: Desmodus can emit subsonic vibrations at will to induce despair in enemies or hope in allies, granting morale penalties or bonuses on various rolls, respectively. Once per day they can also screech to emit a ray that deals sonic damage, or stun all non-desmodu around them.
Super-Senses: Their echolocation gives them blindsight out to 120 feet.

Destrachan

Classification: Aberration (3E), Aberrant Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E), 9 (4E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Evil (4E)

Eyeless reptilian monsters that hunt with devastating sonic attacks.

Eyeless Face: Destrachans have no eyes, and hunt with their hearing which rivals most creatures' sight. This also renders them immune to gaze attacks or illusions.
For the Evulz: Destrachans feed on death and misery, and spread woe for evil's sake.
It Can Think: They look like beasts, but destrachans are frightfully intelligent and wholly malevolent. Though incapable of speech, they can fully understand Common, and communicate through gestures or actions.
Super-Scream: Destrachans' tubular, toothless mouths can emit destructive harmonics that can induce unconsciousness, pulp flesh, or shatter stone, as the monster sees fit. They also are resistant to other sonic attacks.
Super-Senses: Their superior hearing gives destrachans Blindsight out to a whopping 100 feet. On the downside, a silence spell will effectively blind them.

Deva

Classification: Immortal Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (4E)
Playable: 4E
Alignment: Any

Former angels of the Astral Sea who descended to the realm of mortals, reincarnating in humanoid form to defend the world from evil, though some have become corrupted by material influences.
For the celestials known as devas in other editions, see the "Angel" folder.

Amazing Technicolor Population: Deva skin is two-toned, being comprised of a unique pattern of dark colors (hues of blue, violet, gray or black) and pale colors (white or pale gray), with either light or dark dominating and being offset by markings from the other. Their hair is usually either one of these colors or even two-toned, but occasionally is an entirely different color.
Angelic Transformation: For all intents and purposes, devas are angelic beings incarnated in physical, humanoid bodies.
Born-Again Immortality: While devas are usually re-Born as an Adult, they are sometimes reincarnated as infants instead.
Face–Heel Turn: Devas are usually strongly Good-aligned, but some fall into zealotry in their drive to destroy evil, while others end up embracing Evil and opposing their kin.
Immortal Procreation Clause: Zigzagged. Devas can and do have offspring through sexual encounters with mortals. However, their own numbers are fixed; aside from redeeming rakshasas, or having other angels make the pact with the Primal Spirits, the total number of devas can never increase. The offspring of devas are instead mortals of their other parent's race with a deva heritage, granting them the power to call upon the astral splendor of their souls.
Karmic Transformation: A deva's reincarnation parallels that of a 4th Edition rakshasa, and should a fallen deva be slain by radiant energy, it "carries its wickedness into its next life and becomes a rakshasa — a fate that even evil devas revile."
Light 'em Up: Non-evil deva NPCs can deal radiant damage instead of normal attack damage, or blind opponents to gain concealment.
Monochromatic Eyes: Deva eyes are always a solid pale gray or white color, completely without iris or pupil.
Past-Life Memories: In most cases, a deva's past existences remain as vague memories in the back of their head like half-remembered dreams, but they can still draw useful insight from them, translating to a "Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes" racial power that adds a bonus to a dice roll.
Resurrective Immortality: Devas can be killed, but will eventually return in a new body at certain special spots, although this can take centuries. It's implied, but not confirmed, that devas can change their physical shapes and potentially their genders as part of this process.
Reviving Enemy: Fallen devas, if reduced to 0 hit points by non-necrotic damage, revive as an undead creature that will keep doing so until slain by radiant damage. If destroyed in this state, they're doomed to later resurrecting as a raskshasa.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They're this to the aasimar, as Wizards of the Coast circa 4th Edition considered those planetouched lackluster, defined almost entirely by their status as the Good Counterpart to the tieflings. Ironically, the devas' "Ecology" article in Dragon #374 brought up the theory that their ability to have partly-angelic children with other races may make them something of a counterpart to the elementally-touched genasi.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: Fallen devas are concerned with reshaping fate to suit their own plans, and exchange their racial power to add a bonus to their own rolls for a "Fate Manipulation" ability that interferes with other creatures' rolls.
Winged Humanoid: A few devas retain angelic wings.

Devil

A barbazu, cornugon and erinyes (3e)

Classification: Outsider (3E), Immortal Humanoid (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: Varies by type
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Tyrannical fiends from the Nine Hells of Baator, devils are embodiments of the Lawful Evil alignment. See the Devils subpage for more information about them.

Devourer

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Undead (3E), Shadow Humanoid (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (3E, 4E), 13 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil, Evil (4E)

Inhumanly tall, mummy-like monsters that roam the planes, capturing souls to empower themselves.

Enemy Summoner: 5th Edition devourers were explicitly created by Orcus to spread plagues of undeath across worlds, and are able to convert imprisoned souls into zombies, ghouls or wights based upon how powerful they were in life.
Human Shield: In their 3rd Edition rules, a devourer with a trapped essence within it can avoid the effects of certain spells by having that essence take the hit. In the case of spells like banishment, however, this could deprive the devourer of its power source.
Level Drain: 3rd Edition devourers inflict negative levels with their attacks, or to souls imprisoned within their ribcages as they use those souls to power their spell-like abilities.
Make Them Rot: 5th Edition devourers can unleash a wave of necrotic energy to damage those within 20 feet.
Retcon: Devourers were explicitly not undead monsters in 2nd Edition, and were instead a ghastly type of creature that ambushed travelers on the Astral or Ethereal Planes. Then 3rd Edition decided they were undead after all, with 4th Edition specifying that they're formed from murderous souls that passed into the Shadowfell. And then 5th Edition cast them as undead-looking fiends created by the demon lord Orcus.
Soul Eating: As a devourer draws upon an entrapped soul to power its spell-like abilities in 3rd Edition, that soul fades away as it gains negative levels, ultimately evaporating completely.
Your Soul Is Mine!: A devourer can trap the essence of an enemy, either through a special action (in 3rd Edition) or by targeting a living creature at 0 hit points (in 5th Edition). If successful, the unlucky victim appears as a tiny figure imprisoned in the devourer's ribcage, usually for only a brief time before the monster uses it to power its other abilities. While in this state, normal resurrection magic doesn't work on the captive soul, and only destroying the devourer or powerful spells like wish or miracle can free it.

Dharculus

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Alien predators that attack their victims across planar boundaries.

Combat Tentacles: Dharculi's mawed tentatcles appear something like a half-dozen, eyeless eels, which can deal damage but are mainly used to latch onto prey.
Eye on a Stalk: Other tentacles end in eyestalks, which the creatures keep safely on the Ethereal Plane.
Intangibility: A dharculus usually lurks on the Border Ethereal, but upon sighting prey, it phases its six mawed tentacles onto the Material Plane — from a Material creature's perspective, it is suddenly beset by a swarm of eels protruding from a vague, menacing outline behind them. While attacking in this manner, a dharculus' body is vulnerable, but enjoys cover bonuses to Armor Class and Reflex saves, and it can retract its tentacles to the safety of the Ethereal Plane as a standard action. Should a dharculus grapple prey with enough of its mawed tentacles, the other creature is yanked onto the Border Ethereal with it and subject to its primary maw attack (in 2nd Edition), or considered ethereal enough for the dharculus to attack with its main maw (in 3rd Edition). In the former case, a victim might end up stranded on the Etheral Plane even if it defeats the monster, unless it uses the dharculus' tentacles as a lifeline, quickly slipping through the planar breaches the tentacles create before they close.
Our Monsters Are Weird: In the rare cases a dharculus' entire body can be seen, it resembles a swarm of blind eels connected to a worm-like braid that curls forward like a question mark, ending in an even larger, toothier maw. Dharculi's origins are poorly understood, so one theory is that they're from an Alternate Material Plane, while others insist they're from the Far Realm.

Diabolus

Origin: Mystara
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Refugees from a Realm of Nightmares whose fiendish forms belie their good natures and love for freedom.

Anarchy Is Chaos: Averted; the diaboli have a unifying belief in the superiority of anarchy over any attempt to agree upon a form of government, but use a strong sense of traditions, social mores and taboos to hold their society together, living by the adage "Do what thou wilt but harm none."
Beware My Stinger Tail: They have a natural tail attack that can deliver a mild poison, which merely sickens opponents in 3rd Edition but deals damage and potentially paralyzes victims in 2nd Edition.
Big Red Devil: Though their alignment ultimately subverts the trope, the diaboli otherwise meet most of its criteria — hoofed feet, vestigial horns, Hellish Pupils in red or yellow eyes, a whip-like tail with a barbed stinger — except that instead of red flesh, diaboli's skin tones range from mauve and lavender to a near-black violet. On the topic of their goat-like legs, there are three subtypes of diaboli based on just how hairy they are: "bare" diaboli are completely hairless (even the women), "common" diaboli have white or silver hair on their heads much like humans (with males favoring well-groomed beards), while "hirsute" diaboli additionally have goatlike fur from the waist down, giving them the classic devilish appearance.
Bizarrchitecture: Diaboli buildings resemble ruins with leaning walls, beams and timber jutting out at odd angles, and random splashes of paint, all arranged haphazardly without any consideration for a settlement's defense or easy movement.
Dark Is Not Evil: Despite looking like stereotypical fiends, diaboli are generally friendly, open-minded and accepting (if they can get over their prejudices towards humanoids). But their appearance does cause penalties to Diplomacy checks and bonuses to Intimidate attempts.
Devil's Pitchfork: While their technology is generally primitive, duaboli are automatically proficient with tridents, another reason other races can mistake them for fiends.
Fantastic Racism: Diaboli's fiendish appearance leads other races to view them as repulsive, and ironically diaboli find humanoids (especially humans proper) just as off-putting. It's rare for a diaboli community to interact with their neighbors, and such encounters can be marked by extreme politeness, as if both groups are fearful of insulting the other.
Invading Refugees: A benign example; they originate in what Mystarans call the Demiplane of Nightmares, which 3rd Edition positions on the border of both the Ethereal Plane and Region of Dreams. Unfortunately, the Far Realm's influence constantly leaks into this demiplane, leading many diaboli to resettle across the Great Wheel to both escape and spread their creed of "benevolent chaos."
Sssssnake Talk: Diaboli have forked tongues, and their native language features harsh, guttural hissing, resulting in a "thick, snakelike accent" when they speak Common. The fact that their physiology makes it easy for diaboli to pick up Abyssal unfortunately reinforces prejudices against them.
Starfish Language: The diaboli have developed a variant of sign language that uses the twirling and positioning of their tails, though it takes twice as long to communicate a concept this way than it would to speak out loud. Non-diaboli can learn to interpret this tail "language," but obviously they'll have trouble "speaking" it unless they have a tail of their own.
Super-Senses: Like most outsiders, diaboli have darkvision. Their tongues also pick up olfactory cues just like a snake's, though this has no in-game benefit.

Digester

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Bizarre saurian predators that hunt by liquefying, then slurping up their prey.

Acid Attack: Digesters produce an acid that can dissolve a human in just a few seconds. They have enough control over it to spray acid in a 20-foot cone for moderate damage, or unleash a concentrated stream against a single adjacent target for double damage.
Armless Biped: Hence why their only other attack options are clawed kicks.
Big Eater: Every digester is "a hunting and eating machine" that is nearly perpetually hungry.
Our Monsters Are Weird: A digester looks something like a spindly-legged Tyrannosaurus rex sans forearms, but with bony armor plates running along its spine and tail, bristly hair on its lower back, an anteater-like head over a "beard" of fleshy tendrils, bulging, forward-facing eyes, and a protruding orifice on its forehead to spray acid.

Dinosaur

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_tyrannosaurus_3e.jpg

Classification: Animal (3E), Natural Beast (4E), Beast (5E)
Challenge Rating: Varies from 3 (Deinonychus) to 13 (Spinosaurus) (3E); 1/4 (Velociraptor) to 8 (Tyrannosaurus rex) (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Also called behemoths in some quarters, dinosaurs are distinctly less extinct on some worlds than on others.

Acid Attack: Bloodstrikers have acidic blood, which gives them a natural defense against melee attack and which they can spray from their eyes up to thirty feet away as a defensive tactic. Their natural attacks, such as bites and charges, also do acid damage to their targets.
Bandit Mook: Swindlespitters are small dinosaurs who normally feed on the eggs of bigger creatures. However, they're not especially bright and tend to confuse small to medium-sized man-made objects for strange eggs. Consequently, they're known for filching objects such as books, backpacks and the like from camps, carrying them off into the jungle, and tearing them to pieces to get to the yolk they're sure is in them somewhere.
Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Eberron gives individual dinosaur species shorter, pulpier-sounding names in-universe, such as calling velociraptors "clawfeet" and triceratopses "threehorns". 4th edition follows suit while collectively rebranding all dinosaurs as "behemoths" and using non-Latin names for them. 5th edition goes back to calling them dinosaurs and using their proper scientific names, although the Monster Manual notes that "behemoth" is a valid alternate term for them in-universe.
Dinosaurs Are Dragons: While dinosaurs are mere beasts with no magical abilities, there is some speculation that they're related to dragons, which might be the dinosaurs' more successful descendents. This "evolutionary" theory is controversial, however, since it contradicts the far more simple explanation that Io created the dragons in his own image, just as other deities created the mortal races.
Domesticated Dinosaurs: Several settings have societies that have managed to tame dinosaurs for various uses. For instance, in Eberron there are nomadic halfling tribes that ride dromaeosaurs the way Mongols ride horses.
Kaiju: The 5E Glory of the Giants supplement includes several Gargantuan creatures that are essentially dire dinosaurs infused with elemental energy. A Tyrannosaurus can swallow a human in a single bite, while a "regisaur" is so staggeringly enormous that it can swallow a giant in a single bite.
Raptor Attack: Beyond actual raptors like Deinonychus and Velociraptor, D&D has invented "fleshrakers," large, scaly-skinned raptors native to dense jungles, notable chiefly for their venomous claws and spines and for their preference for ambushing lone targets.
Savage Spinosaurs: The 3E Monster Manual II, which came out the year after Jurassic Park 3, features Spinosaurus as its apex dinosaur, a CR 13 monster (compared to a T. rex's CR 8) so terrifying that its "unearthly, soul-searing bellow" acts as a Supernatural Fear Inducer. True to the trope, it's described as a conventional land predator, and doesn't even have a swim speed.
Smash Mook: Dinosaurs generally have a large amount of health and a single, hard-hitting attack that they can use once per turn. They are far from the most complex monsters a DM can run, but they can prove quite dangerous in spite of that: a Triceratops or a Tyrannosaurus rex can easily ruin a low- to mid-level party's day.
The Spiny: Bloodstrikers are beasts resembling armor-plated ceratopsids with two notable traits: a bristling coat of bony spines and caustic blood. Characters who attack a bloodstriker in melee receive damage from both their slashing spines and the caustic fluids released from the wound, the latter also harming their weapons. To avoid harming themselves, characters must attack bloodstrikers with either weapons with exceptional reach, such as longspears, which will still be damaged by the blood, or with ranged attacks. Fleshrakers, meanwhile, are covered in spines, but don't get a similar caveat.
Swallowed Whole: The larger carnivores like Tyrannosaurus rex can gulp down humanoids in a single bite.
Toxic Dinosaur:
- Fleshrakers are large, scaly raptorial dinosaurs whose claws and spines are coated with a deadly toxin.
- Swindlespitters are small dinosaurs, normally reliant on stealth and agility to stay out of danger, whose primary offensive power is their ability to spit out a spray of "corrosive poison" every few turns. They're based directly on the Procompsognathus from The Lost World.
Trampled Underfoot: Some of the larget sauropods can make trample attacks against enemies they move over.
Zerg Rush: Needletooth dinosaurs are individually only the size of cats, but hunt in large packs. Their favorite hunting tactic is to mob targets en masse and pull them to the ground by weight of numbers, a tactic that can overwhelm sizable prey in a living tide of hungry, snapping mouths.

Battletitan

Challenge Rating: 16 (3E)

Specially-bred saurian warbeasts that combine the ferocity of theropods with the defenses of sauropods.

Beast of Battle: They are literally bred to be living superweapons, able to wade into enemy formations and shatter them.
Horse of a Different Color: Battletitans are trained from birth to carry a rider and wear barding. They respond only to the proper handling signals, which are treated as state secrets by the beasts' creators.
Hybrid Monster: Battletitans do not occur naturally, and only arise from meticulous crossbreeding of natural dinosaurs. For the same reason, they cannot be summoned by summon nature's ally or chosen as animal companions.
Swallowed Whole: Like the Tyrannosaurus rex they're descended from, battletitans can simply gulp down opponents.

Prismasaurus

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 28 (3E)

A dinosaur-like creature with a row of prismatic crystals running down its spine. It has innate magical powers which let it manipulate light.

Blinded by the Light: The prismatic emanations given off by a prismasaurus are bright enough to strike nearby creatures blind. They also distort its outline, so that all physical attacks made against it are likely to miss.
Contractual Boss Immunity: As an epic monster, it is immune to certain attacks and status ailments that would make it easier to defeat.
Mix-and-Match Critters: It resembles a hadrosaur with the tail club of an ankylosaur.
One-Hit Kill: Its bite attack can instantly kill you on a critical hit, regardless of how many hit points you have left. You can avoid dying by making a Fortitude save, thankfully.
Random Effect Spell: The creature's prismatic emanations duplicate the effects of the prismatic spray spell, blasting everything within a thirty-foot radius with randomized rays of magical energy.
Whateversaurus: A rainbow-scaled, rainbow-emitting dinosaur simply named the prismasaurus.

Diopsid

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: True Neutral

Beetle-like humanoids who dwell in the Underdark, hiring their services out to other races in exchange for metal equipment.

Consummate Professional: Even though diopsids are willing to work for any employer, from deep gnomes to duergar to drow or even illithids, they never cause more havoc than is necessary, or revel in inflicting pain or suffering. Thus, they never alienate someone who might hire them for the next conflict.
Dumb Muscle: Diopsids are hardy, but clumsy and somewhat dull, resulting in a racial bonus to Constitution but penalties to Dexterity and Intelligence.
Humans Through Alien Eyes: Part of the reason diopsids get along with other races is because they see little difference between a drow and duergar, at least when compared to the differences between a diopsid and the average humanoid. They also consider the surface world, with its ever-changing winds and unrelenting rain, to be a terrible place, inhabited by "lost souls cast out of the comforting grasp of the earth and forced to survive in a deadly, alien land" — surface-dwellers are thus subject to both pity and endless curiosity.
Innate Night Vision: Like most Underdark races, they have darkvision.
Insectoid Aliens: They're human-sized beetle-folk whose carapace gives them natural armor, but makes it hard for them to use conventional equipment.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Diopsids have a secondary pair of limbs that are too weak to wield weapons or shields with full effectiveness, though they can also help the primary limbs manage oversized weapons, thus allowing the diopsid to Dual Wield two-handed weapons.
Phosphor-Essence: Diopsids' bodies have numerous bioluminescent glands on them that can shed light in a 10-foot radius as needed.
Private Military Contractors: They covet metal weapons and armor, but lack the expertise to make their own, leading the diopsids to work as soldiers, hunters or scouts in exchange for such goods. This puts them on friendly terms with other Underdark races, whom they view as potential clients able to provide them with valuable metals. Meanwhile, the diopsids' neighbors have learned that it's much easier to deal with them as mercenaries than it is to try and invade their cavern-cities.
The Sleepless: Much like the thri-kreen, diopsids don't need to sleep, and are immune to magical attempts to put them to sleep.
Starfish Language: While diopsids can learn to speak the likes of Common with a dry, hollow, clicking accent, their native "language" is silent, communicated through flashes of their bioluminescence. This lets diopsids send messages across great distances, and they've even learned how to "whisper" by flashing light visible only to creatures with darkvision. On the downside, this means Diopsid has no written form, something that has crippled the race's technological advancement.
Winged Humanoid: Diopsids have stunted wings too weak for flight, but they can be used to safely slow a diopsid's fall.

Dire Animal

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/direbear_9305.jpg

A dire bear, with wood elf for scale. (3e)

Classification: Animal (3E)
Challenge Rating: Varies from 1/3 (dire rat) to 14 (dire hippopotamus) (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Larger, tougher, and all-around meaner versions of mundane animals.

Dire Beast: The Trope Codifier. Just take an ordinary animal from the appendix at the back of a Monster Manual, scale it up a size category, slap on some extra horns and/or bony plates, and voila.
Horse of a Different Color: If they can be tamed, dire animals make dangerous mounts. Some giants like to ride dire elephants, for example.
Medieval Prehistory: Several types of dire animals are prehistoric creatures rather than simply meaner versions of contemporary wildlife. Smilodons, megaloceroses, glyptodons, woolly mammoths, and the like have all appeared in this capacity.

Dire Corby

Classification: Natural Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil (4E)

Black-feathered, avian humanoids who travel the Underdark in ravenous, raucous flocks.

Bird People: They look something like Medium-sized kenku, dark, wingless humanoid birds. Evidently they were able to fly in the past, but somehow lost the ability in favor of increased ferocity and strength.
Brown Note: Their cacophonic chirps, hoots and howls have enough magic to induce vertigo in listeners — in gameplay terms, those who fail their saving throws can't climb, dash, or cast spells more complicated than cantrips.
Foreboding Fleeing Flock: Beyond their echoing calls, one sign of an approaching dire corby flock is how other Underdark or dungeon denizens are fleeing for safer ground.
The Horde: Dire corbies migrate through the Underdark along pedictable routes, consuming everything in their path (normally insects, lichen and fungi, but anything that succumbs to their sonic chattering is fair game). Occasionally, blocked passages will force the dire corbies to make a detour, which can lead to them entering the lower levels of a dungeon and finding their way to the surface, where they continue to feed on anything they can, to the detriment of nearby settlements.
Pretend We're Dead: A variant; someone who plugs their ears to block the dire corbies' screeching, and manages to mimic their hooting and chirping, can fool these simple-minded beings with surprising ease, allowing them to travel with a dire corby flock in relative safety.

Disenchanter

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 17 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Strange quadrupeds with a ravenous hunger for magic.

Art Evolution: Their early art and descriptions depict disenchanters as electric-blue, trunked, camel-like creatures, while 3rd Edition portrays them with silvery, scaly armored hides, club tails, and extended tongues instead.
Bioweapon Beast: They were bred by generals desperate for an edge against magic-wielding enemies, but predictably escaped to menace the wider world.
It Can Think: Their older material mentions that disenchanters are about as intelligent as the average human, have their own language, and may rarely learn Common or Elvish, but most don't bother to communicate with other creatures. 3rd Edition, in contrast, puts their Intelligence at 5 and doesn't mention any languages.
Magic Eater: Their signature ability and defining trait. Each round a disenchanter keeps its tongue attached to a magic item, it drains a magic item's property, a charge from something like a magic wand, or a point's worth of enhancement bonus from a magic weapon. This process grants a disenchanter temporary hit points.
Mooks Ate My Equipment: In addition to their magic-draining tongue attacks, any magic weapon that successfully strikes a disenchanter has to save or lose a property or point of enhancement bonus.
Overly-Long Tongue: Their tongues are 15 feet long, sticky, and capable of wrapping around and restraining victims whose magic items they're draining.
The Plot Reaper: They're more or less a non-lethal example of the trope, as disenchanters tend to show up in campaigns where the player characters have gotten a little too powerful thanks to their magical swag.
Supernatural Sensitivity: Disenchanters are under a constant detect magic effect, and can sense a strong magical aura from up to 10 miles away.

Disir

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (disir), 4 (tyin), 11 (queen) (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil (disir), True Neutral (tyin)

Disgusting beings who live deep underground, preying upon all around them, though they have begun to venture onto the surface as well.

Absolute Xenophobe: Disir are sentient and have their own language (Dis), but have "a fanatical hatred of anything that might be their neighbor," attacking and eating dwarves, kobolds and other underground races, then squatting in their homes.
Covered in Gunge: The gunk coating their bodies adds poison to their melee attacks, makes them resistant to fire damage, and lets them more easily wriggle out of bonds.
Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: True disir have the "Light Sensitivity" trait, though the tyin have had this weakness bred out of them.
Dumb Muscle: Tyin are disir mutated by their queens into Large, slightly more powerful forms that are better able to tolerate sunlight. However, they're only as smart as ogres, and understand simple verbal commands in Dis but can comprehend little else.
Insect Queen: A disir tribe's queen is larger and far stronger than the lesser disir, and provide leadership (advised by a council of elite males) and induce mutations in disir larvae to produce the likes of tyin. However, they aren't actually "baby factories," instead it is the other disir females who reproduce.
Mix-and-Match Critters: They look like some combination of Lizard Folk and Slaying Mantis, though the degree of variation exhibited in things like how much their bodies are covered by their carapace suggests that they're not a natural species. "What the true disir originally were, in the distant past, can no longer be determined."
Mook Commander: Disir queens have special rules doubling the bonus disir receive from the "aid another" action, or inspiring them to grant morale bonuses on attack and damage rolls, as well as saving throws.
The Paralyzer: The poison coating their bodies causes such intense pain that it numbs the victim's body, gradually paralyzing them (through Dexterity damage in 3rd Edition).
The Pig-Pen: Disirs' slimy bodies constantly shed dead flesh and other debris, and they reek of death and decay.
Religion of Evil: Disir "do not practice or condone the use of arcane magic," but they do have divine spellcasters, (male) clerics of Morgion, Krynnish god of pestilence. They tend to advise their tribes' queen to follow the god's will, and it's suspected that the disir's spread is born from Morgion's desire to undermine the dwarves and other races.
Sex Shifter: Disir sexes are hard to distinguish in normal circumstances, not helped by the fact that their hatchlings develop into males as they grow into adults, then around the 10-year mark, half of these will transition into breeding females or queens.

Displacer Beast

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Fey Magical Beast (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E), 9 (4E), 3 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Six-legged, tentacled felines who are never quite where they seem to be.

Animal Jingoism: Displacer beasts harbor a deep and mutual loathing of blink dogs, and the two species will attack each other on sight — the classic cat/dog rivalry, it seems, extends even to magical canine and feline beasts.
Cats Are Mean: Displacer beasts are vicious, Lawful Evil panthers typically contrasted against the Lawful Good blink dogs. They also embody the stereotype of cats as needlessly cruel hunters, killing for sport even when not hungry and toying with and tormenting their prey before killing it. Though some sources just have them as animals with a supernatural trick.
Elite Mooks: Occasionally, displacer beasts give birth to freakishly large and strong offspring. Besides being much stronger and more dangerous than typical displacer beasts, these creatures often take control of displacer packs, hence their common moniker of displacer beast pack lords.
Expy: By Gary Gygax's admission, displacer beasts were directly based on Coeurl, the titular feline monster from "Black Destroyer".
Glowing Eyes: Displacer beast eyes glow bright green, and continue to do so after the creature dies.
Hitbox Dissonance: They invoke this via their ability, making them appear displaced from their true position in order to avoid attacks.
Verber Creature: In this case, one named after its ability to "displace" its own image to confuse and mislead opponents.
Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: They resemble panthers with six legs, before also counting their two shoulder-mounted tentacles.

Divine Wrath Swarm

Bronze locusts (3e)

Swarms of magical creatures sent by the gods themselves to punish evildoers, or serve as harbingers of worse calamities to come.

Divine Punishment: Again, they're unleashed by deities upon those who displease them, though they're used sparingly.
The Swarm: They can be compared to some of the biblical plagues, being vast hordes of insects or animals, except they're even more dangerous than mundane locust swarms.

Apocalypse Frog Swarm

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Incessantly croaking black-eyed frogs sporting golden sunburst patterns on their backs, which can be annoying to good creatures but dangerous towards evildoers.

Poisonous Person: Evil creatures wounded by them might contract the affliction known as eternal torpor, suffering Dexterity damage and leaving them too drowsy to charge or run.
Synchronization: Apocalypse frogs are surrounded by a retributive aura, which means that whenever they're subjected to damage, anything in a 30-foot radius is also injured; they can save for half damage, but Damage Reduction or other defenses don't apply.

Bronze Locust Swarm

Classification: Construct (3E)
Challenge Rating: 17 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Finely-crafted insectoid constructs that can chew through just about anything, or blast victims with divine flame.

Armor-Piercing Attack: Bronze locusts' mandibles are made from adamantine, allowing them to ignore objects' hardness value and gnaw even stone fortifications as easily as they can slice flesh.
Mechanical Insects: They look much like ordinary locusts, though their gemlike eyes and gleaming metal carapaces reveal their artificial nature.
Playing with Fire: Each bronze locust contains a tiny furnace of Sacred Flames, which a swarm can unleash upon whatever it's overrunning. Half the damage deal is fire damage, but the other half is Non-Elemental divine power not subject to any damage reduction or resistances.

Deathraven Swarm

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 20 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Silver-eyed crows dispatched at midnight to kill the vilest of foes.

Creepy Crows: They're not actively evil, and in fact can be dispatched by good deities to destroy the most despicable beings, but deathravens are extremely dangerous. It's also noted that, unlike most other swarms, deathraven swarms can not only grapple, but carry off Medium-sized targets.
Eye Scream: Any time a deathraven swarm deals damage to something, the victim has a 1-in-5 chance of having its eyes plucked out. In this case, remove blindness/deafness is useless, and it takes heal or stronger magic to regrow the lost eyeballs.
One-Hit Kill: As if that's not enough, any creature wounded by a deathraven swarm has to save or die instantly, and those who succumb to this touch of death can't be revived by anything short of a full wish or miracle.

Sunfly Swarm

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Dazzling golden dragonflies with rainbow-colored eyes and silvery wings, used primarily as messengers across the Upper Planes, though they're still dangerous when riled.

Defend Command: Sunflies can perform a "sundance," giving themselves and any creature in their space the benefits of a protection from evil effect.
Light 'em Up: Beyond dazzling those they attack with their glimmering bodies, sunfly swarms can also unleash a sunburst spell as if cast by a 20th-level cleric, three times per day.
One-Steve Limit: Averted; 5th Edition also has sunflies, but they look completely different ("cutesy" flyers rather than dragonfly-like outsiders), can be found across the Outer Planes, have a poisonous sting rather than power over light, and have no history of being used as instruments of divine justice (since even a swarm of 5E sunflies amounts to just a CR 1 encounter). As such, they have their own folder elsewhere on the creature index.

Doc cu'o'c

Origin: Kara-tur
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Bizarre entities resembling vertically-bisected humans, who are nevertheless capable of fighting to protect a chosen estate or village.

Berserk Button: Doc cu'o'cs keep their offered treasure in lairs on the Astral Plane, and should those homes ever be robbed, the enraged doc cu'o'c returns to the Material Plane to ransack the very manor or village they were protecting, before leaving for good.
Guardian Entity: A particularly Neutral example. Doc cu'o'cs require regular worship and offerings of food and treasure, otherwise they'll leave their area and never return. And while doc cu'o'cs take their roles as protectors seriously, they have no allegiance to other areas, and are not above encouraging raiders to attack the next village down the road rather than the one the doc cu'o'c is sworn to defend.
Half the Man He Used to Be: As mentioned, a doc cu'o'c looks like half of a person, divided vertically.
Invisibility: Doc cu'o'cs can turn invisible at will.
Shock and Awe: The axes they hold in their single hands crackle with energy, and deal heavy electricity damage with each strike.
Weather Manipulation: They can use control weather a few times each day, usually to scare off intruders, though a doc cu'o'c might answer a request for rain to bring about an ample harvest.
White Mage: A doc cu'o'c can also use spells like remove curse and remove disease each once per day.

Dohwar

Origin: Spelljammer
Classification: Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 0 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (2E), Any (5E)

A race of short, flightless, arctic avians who seek to become the greatest merchants in the multiverse.

Alien Catnip: Dohwar are unaffected by alcohol, instead they get drunk on sugar — an apple hits as hard as a strong beer, while a few tablespoons of maple syrup or honey will get a dohwar blind stinkin' drunk.
Art Evolution: Their original art depicts them as crested penguins with a black-and-white coloration, while their 5th Edition art depicts dohwar without head crests, and gives them colorful plumage and generally cuter faces.
Beak Attack: Played with; dohwar know their beaks are useless in combat, so they've developed blades called weega to fit over them, which are as effective as short swords.
Bird People: As they're based on penguins, they can't fly, but have a swim speed. Their AD&D entry notes that unlike most birds, dohwar have developed fangs to help them eat the tougher plant life of Wildspace, but they don't do much damage in combat (and aren't visible in their artwork).
Emergency Multifaith Prayer: The dohwar venerate a pantheon of gods consisting of every god of commerce or wealth they come across — Waukeen of the Realms, Shinare of Krynn, Zilchus of Greyhawk, even Abbathor from the dwarven pantheon. They make generous donations to these gods as a "cosmic investment," a way to become the multiverse's top merchants without offending any god in particular.
Horse of a Different Color: They've bred winged "space swine" to serve as beasts of burden, while armored dohwar cavalry known as Deathsquealers ride them into combat.
In the Hood: Dohwar don hooded cloaks if they know their appearance may disconcert potential customers, and try to pass themselves off as short members of another species.
Proud Merchant Race: Dohwar are "shameless" merchants always on the lookout for an opportunity to profit, to the extent that a group of them is called a "cartel," they undergo "mergers" with each other rather than marriages, and they refer to their eggs as "new wares." However, they're hampered by their lack of social skills — their AD&D entry describes dohwar as "obnoxious, brash, persistent, money-grubbing merchants" whose sales pitch is to gang up on a potential customer and rapidly recite their wares and prices, while also offering to buy things off the customer. 5th Edition also notes their habit of preferring to do business in back alleys even if the things they're selling are perfectly legal. All this to say, nobody has any interest in visiting the dohwar homeworld, and the space penguins come across as Plucky Comic Relief compared to more successful merchants like the neogi and mercanes. And despite their lust for wealth, the dohwar treat each other well and for the most part fairly, to compensate for a multiverse they feel is out to get them.
The Rival: They're driven to displace the mercane ("Our Competitors") as the foremost merchants of the multiverse.
Rummage Sale Reject: Dohwar often end up wearing "a garish mishmash of clashing clothes" when not in their cloaks.
Telepathy: Two dohwar (such as merged partners) can set up a psychic bond that lets them communicate telepathically with each other, as well as a nearby third party of their choice. If one member of a merger is slain, the other goes berserk and attacks anything around them.

Domovoi

Classification: Fey (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Domestic fey appearing as two-foot-tall, hairy, soot-covered humans, who protect settlements in cold climates.

House Fey: Domovoi families live in humanoid villages or encampments, ensuring that "the buildings are brighter lit, the hearth fires are warmer, and creatures of cold and night are less likely to strike." They usually wear rags cast off by their hosts, and sustain themselves on rats and mice, as well as small offerings of grain and firewood. In the case of nomadic humanoids, domovoi will remain in a winter camp, maintaining it until the nomads return.
Loyal to the Position: The domovoi will help anyone survive in their cold homelands, whether humans or dwarves, neanderthals or orcs, or even kobolds, ogres or giants.
The Pig-Pen: While domovoi are always covered in soot from the fires and forges they tend, this does mean they're particularly hard to grapple in combat.
Playing with Fire: These fey can use produce flame at will, or throw a flaming sphere three times per day. That said, domovoi will never do anything to set the home they're protecting on fire, and firefighting is one of the duties they perform to maintain a dwelling.

Doppelganger

^3e

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E-5E)
Playable: 3E-4E
Alignment: True Neutral

Shapeshifters who infiltrate society for their own purposes. Their talents can make them phenomenal thieves and assassins, and their activities spread fear and paranoia in their wake, but thankfully most doppelgangers are content to take over someone else's life and reap the fruits of another's labor until it's time to make their escape.

Ambiguous Situation: In Eberron, doppelgangers have some connection to the changeling race, but it's unclear whether doppelgangers are the changelings' ancestors, or the descendents of changelings mutated by the daelkyr.
Capture and Replicate: During long cons, a doppelganger might keep the person they're impersonating captive in case they need more information about how to maintain the disguise.
Eat Brain for Memories: Greater doppelgangers are feared for being able to eat the brains of their victims, allowing them to perfectly take on their identity and access all their memories. This even lets greater doppelgangers use their victims' class abilities and magic, with the exception of divine spells over 2nd level and a paladin's god-given powers. The downside is that a greater doppelganger can only fully access one identity at a time, can only "store" so many at once, and should they take an action that runs against an assumed identity's alignment, the doppelganger is forced back into its natural form for a few rounds.
The Greys: Their artwork (particularly in 3rd Edition) often depicts them with the grey hairless skin, absent genitals, frail physique, noseless faces, slit mouths, large eyes and bulbous craniums of this trope. Like the greys of conspiracy theories, they are also adept infiltrators who frequently sneak into human society to manipulate it for their own mysterious ends, and abduct and (mentally) probe captives for information.
Lazy Bum: A doppelganger's life generally revolves around tricking people into doing work for them, including caring for their own children.
Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: Doppelgangers reproduce by taking male form and impregnating other humanoids, then abandoning them. The resulting offspring appear normal at first, but around adolescence their shapechanging abilities will manifest, at which point most leave their old lives behind to seek out more of their kind.
The Sociopath: Doppelgangers aren't committed to evil, but they are wholly self-interested and view other beings as playthings to be manipulated and deceived.
Technically Naked Shapeshifter: Doppelgangers can mimic clothes alongside their changes of form, down to minute details. One old D&D module has an example of a doppelganger taking the statue of an old wizard as template for his appearance, wearing identical robes, including the exact same runic writing on the hem of it.
Telepathy: Doppelgangers can read other creatures' surface thoughts at will, picking up their names, fears and aspirations, and the odd memory or two. This naturally gives them an advantage during social interactions.
This Was His True Form: If slain, a doppelganger will drop its disguise and revert to its gray, rubbery default form.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: A doppelganger can take the appearance of any humanoid between four and eight feet tall, and routinely use this ability to sneak into humanoid settlements, infiltrate society, and casually walk past guard pickets.

Dracon

Origin: Spelljammer
Playable: 2E
Alignment: Lawful Good

A large race of "dragon-centaurs" who are just beginning to explore space.

Arch-Enemy: They hate spiders in general and the neogi in particular, either because of their resemblance to the Dark God of dracon religion, or because of previous encounters with the slave-taking spider-eels.
Dragons Are Divine: Dracons hold true dragons in awe, and consider them messengers from the dracons' pantheon to be carefully watched for signs of the gods' intentions.
Fantastic Racism: Downplayed; they aren't hateful, but dracons do consider all sentients with fewer than six limbs to be "the deformed," and view them as disadvantaged. Dracons are also bad at telling humanoid races apart, so that their racial quote in The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook has a dracon ambassador telling an elf "Oh, that's right, you're the ones who live in caves and hoard gold, I remember. Did you shave your beard?" It's mentioned this exchange happened "just before the fighting started."
Loners Are Freaks: Their entry bluntly states that "A lone dracon is a rarity and a freak among its people." They prefer to live in familial herds led by an elder called a kaba, advised by a high priest known as a shalla. Dracons separated from their families are known to fall ill, and may gather a substitute family of non-dracons until they find their way back to their kin.
Naïve Newcomer: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, dracons are recent arrivals to the fringe of the Known Spheres, and they're smart enough not to share the location of their homeworld with any outsiders. But they're still getting the measure of their fellow spacefaring races, so that not only do they have trouble telling humanoids apart, they view beholders as "comical," making joking comparisons to kickballs, rather than treating the eye tyrants as dangerous, insane aberrations. "How long this situation lasts remains to be seen."
Our Centaurs Are Different: They've got a Horned, Draconic Humanoid upper torso atop the bulky, flat-footed, whip-tailed body of a brontosaur.
Trial by Combat: Dracons have codes to settle disputes through ritualized combat, usually taking the form of wrestling. They'll never offer these terms to non-dracons, but if an outsider challenges a dracon under those codes, they would be honor-bound to accept (within reason, such as by demanding that an illithid forgo the use of their mind blast).

Draconian

Draconian dreadnought (5e)

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Dragon (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2-9 (3E); 2-8 (4E); 1/2 to 6 (5E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Any Evil (3E), Evil (4E), Any (5E)

Monstrous draconic humanoids created from warped or corrupted dragon eggs, typically the result of an evil mage creating an army. They're unrelated to the dracons above.

Bioweapon Beast: They are not born naturally and initially had no ability to reproduce on their own. Instead, they are created through a magical ritual that corrupts a dragon's egg, making it hatch into a clutch of new draconians.
Breath Weapon: Aurak draconians (and their 5th Edition successors, draconian masterminds) can exhale a cloud of poisonous gas.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The draconians have the same colors as the chromatic and metallic dragons, but turn the significance of those colors on its head. The base draconians, which are made from the eggs of the traditionally good metallic dragons, are frequently of evil alignment. Likewise the noble draconians, who come from the eggs of the frequently evil chromatic dragons, are usually of good alignment.
Draconic Humanoid: They look like human-sized, bipedal versions of chromatic and metallic dragons, and are capable of wielding weapons and wearing armor.
Flawed Prototype: The sesk and traag were early experiments with creating draconians that were discarded as failures. The traag turned out emaciated and gangly, and alternately cowardly and prone to berserk rages, so they were replaced with the baaz. The sesk are hunched and twisted creatures, as if their silver dragon blood is rebelling against them, and were actually too smart, prone to questioning their superiors, leading them to be replaced by the sivak. Both types of proto-draconians now eke out a tribal existence where they can.
Gold-Colored Superiority: As with metallic dragons, aurak draconians are traditionally the strongest subtype.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Aurak draconians and draconian masterminds eschew weapons in favor of ripping into foes with their bare, clawed hands. They are also the most magically-adept of the draconians, able to teleport around, beguile foes, and pelt enemies with energy blasts fired from their hands.
Kill and Replace: Sivaks (and 5E draconian dreadnoughts) can transform themselves into the likeness of a Large or smaller humanoid they just killed, and can remain in that form indefinitely until they make another kill or choose to revert to their natural form.
No Body Left Behind: When a draconian dies, a magical effect kicks in that destroys its remains, traditionally varying by the draconian's subtype. Baaz turn to stone (and might entrap the melee weapon that killed them), sivaks turn into the likeness of their killer for three days before dissolving into soot, feraks disintegrate into a cloud of dust, and kobaaz crystalize into an icy statue cold enough to damage those around it. But in other cases, the effect is more dangerous: auraks detonate with magical energy, bozaks have their flesh crumble to dust just before their skeletons burst into bony shrapnel, kapaks dissolve into a pool of acid, and adamaaz explode in a thunderous burst. These death throes are carried over to 5E's generic draconians, though with occasional twists — draconian foot soldiers both turn to stone themselves and might petrify those around them as well, while draconian masterminds explode in Chain Lightning that seeks out nearby foes.
Poisoned Weapons: Kapak draconians and draconian infiltrators coat their weapons in their own venomous saliva.
Retcon:
- As per their origins in Dragonlance, traditionally there are five types of standard draconian, corresponding to the five metallic dragon breeds from whose eggs they're created: baaz (brass), kapak (copper), bozak (bronze), sivak (silver) and aurak (gold), each with traits that make them suit particular battlefield roles. 4th Edition, which expanded its metallic dragon family, added the ferak (iron), kobaaz (cobalt) and adamaaz (adamantine) draconian subtypes.
- 5th Edition instead categorizes draconians by role (dreadnought, foot soldier, infiltrator, mage, and mastermind) and explains that dragon breeds of any family might generate such creatures, so a draconian dreadnought, for example, could be created from the egg of a silver, blue or sapphire dragon. The Krynnish names for draconians are kept as terminology for draconians created from metallic dragon eggs.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Aurak draconians can use a polymorph self effect three times per day.
Winged Humanoid: Most draconians have wings just like the dragons they resemble, with aurak draconians being the one exception amongst the base dragonian types. Despite these wings, most draconians cannot fly, though some at least use them to glide or slow a fall.

Dragon

A red dragon, with a hapless human for scale (3e)

Classification: Dragon (3E, 5E), Natural Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: Varies by dragon type and age category
Alignment: Varies by dragon type

Scaled, winged creatures that are majestic and mighty, intelligent and proud, famed for the magical powers at their disposal and their tendency to hoard treasure. See the Creature Types subpage for information about Dragons in general, and the Dragons subpage for the "true" dragons.

Dragon Eel

^3e

Classification: Dragon (3E), Elemental Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (3E), 15 (4E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Unaligned (4E)

Ravenous predators and bestial kin to true dragons.

Art Evolution: They got a drastic redesign between 3rd and 4th Edition, going from something like a draconic Dunkleosteus to a flying creature with wing-fins.
Food Chain of Evil: Dragon eels are known to prey on dragon turtles.
Flying Seafood Special: 4E dragon eels outwardly resemble marine animals, but are just as comfortable flying through the air as they are swimming in the water.
Retcon: 3rd Edition dragon eels are fearsome but mundane sea monsters with no supernatural abilities, while their 4th Edition incarnation is equally at home in the sky and the water, travels through airy and watery pockets of the Elemental Chaos, and has a breath weapon.
Sea Monster: The dragon eel is an evil monster that can easily puncture the side of a ship and then proceed to eat the drowned crew.
Shock and Awe: In 4E, dragon eels can spit lightning.
Slippery as an Eel: Dragon eels are infamously treacherous, and some crews that had already negotiated with them for safe passage have vanished without a trace.
Super-Senses: 3E dragon eels can smell blood in the water up to a mile away, detect creatures by scent within 180 feet, and have blindsense out to 30 feet if both they and other creatures are in the water.
Swallowed Whole: They're capable of gulping down any Medium or smaller creatures they catch in their jaws.

Dragon Turtle

Classification: Dragon (3E), 5E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E), 4-24 (5E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Chelonian dragons who live in the sea, generally attacking anything that enters their territory. They lack the intellect of true dragons, but dragon turtles are smart enough to accept tribute from passing ships, or form alliances with undersea races in exchange for treasure. Dragon turtles make their lairs in coral reefs and submerged caves, and their hoards are motley collections of coral and pearls gifted by aquatic races as well as treasures from the surface realm recovered from ships.

The Archmage: While Dragon turtles are not 'True' Dragons, they do have access to the variant Innate Spellcasting rule. While they do not get many (1 spell for normal turtles and 2 for Ancient turtles), they can cast them at 5th and 8th level, respectively.
Crafted from Animals: AD&D notes that turtle dragon shells make for outstanding armor and shields, providing additional protection than normal and resisting destruction from fire effects.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Giant sea turtles with draconic heads.
Mundane Object Amazement: The more inquisitive dragon turtles may become fascinated by the artifacts from the surface world that end up in their hoards, and even seek out humanoids to explain the things' purposes.
Outside-Context Problem: Not exactly a problem, per se, but even the dragon gods are baffled by them — neither Tiamat nor Bahamut made them, and they have no idea where they came from.
Fizban: I know I didn't make dragon turtles, and Tiamat swears she didn't, so where did they come from? More importantly, why?
Playing with Fire: Their breath weapon is a cone of scalding steam, which can deal fire damage even underwater, and the oldest dragon turtles can generate enough heat to set the water around them boiling, damaging everything nearby.
Sea Monster: Dragon turtles are powerful and feared marine predators, and very fond of capsizing boats.
Shock and Awe: Ancient dragon turtles who are sorely pressed in combat can generate magical storms around themselves, zapping anything that dares attack.
Stronger with Age: The elder dragon turtle is far larger, far stronger and far more dangerous than the ordinary dragon turtle, which is already a CR 17 terror of the seas.
Turtle Island: The oldest dragon turtles can be as large as an island, and have been mistaken for land by many unwitting sailors wrecked at sea. Ancient dragon turtles might sleep for decades while floating along the surface of the ocean, letting vegetation take root on their shells.

Dragonborn

Dragonborn of Bahamut (3e)

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E), 5 (4E)
Playable: 3E-5E
Alignment: Any non-Evil (3E), Any (4E-5E)

Humanoids with draconic appearances, and some measure of their namesake's power. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Dragonet

A family of lesser dragons with bodies only two to five feet long. Most possess breath weapons, and their intelligence ranges from animalistic to fully-sapient, but only faerie dragons are capable of speech.

Cat Like Dragons: Besides most of them sharing true dragons' vaguely feline build, some dragonets like the faerie dragon and pseudodragon in particular are very cat-like in temperament, demanding their "master"'s attention and occasionally acting out when they aren't pampered enough.
Familiar: Dragonets (with the exception of the belligerant fire drakes) are often sought out as familiars by like-minded mages, due to their telepathic abilities. Some even become bonded to non-mages who treat them well, developing an empathic link with their partner.
Shoulder-Sized Dragon: All but the fire drake and mole dragon are small enough to perch upon a Medium-sized humanoid.
Telepathy: With the exception of fire drakes, dragonets have some degree of telepathy, ranging from transmitting what they see or hear to mentally sharing simple concepts.

Crow's Nest Dragon

Classification: Dragon (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Also known as "spiretop dragons" in the city of Sharn, these flighty and mischevious dragonets usually dwell on coastal cliffs or atop structures in port cities, and are comfortable diving into the ocean and swimming after prey, or following passing ships and feeding on the disturbed fish in their wake.

Death from Above: Crow's nest dragons hunt by diving on prey from above, gaining an attack bonus and dealing double damage with their bite attack.
Smoke Out: Their only breath "weapon" is the ability to exhale a fog cloud.
Superstitious Sailors: Crow's nest dragons are considered lucky by sailors, and indeed, ships become slightly more seaworthy should a flock of such dragonets fly nearby. Should anyone aboard kill a crow's nest dragon, the flock will fly off and never return.
The Swarm: Their 3E rules let spiretop dragons fight as a swarm of Tiny creatures.
Telepathy: Should they bond with a sailor or nautical spellcaster, they can transmit whatever they see to a range of 240 yards, making them excellent scouts.

Faerie Dragon

Classification: Dragon (3E, 5E), Fey Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E); 1 (red, orange, yellow), 2 (green, blue, indigo, violet) (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Good (3E, 5E), Unaligned (4E)

Diminutive, mischevious dragons with ties to the fey.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Subverted; they have stingers in their 3rd and 5th Edition art, but no tail attack.
Fairy Dragons: Small (about the size of a cat), mischievous relatives of true dragons with butterfly wings, who often travel in the company of small fey such as sprites and pixies.
Invisibility: They have a superior form of invisibility that allows them to perform actions while unseen.
No Body Left Behind: A slain faerie dragon's body dissolves in a burst of light.
Perpetual Smiler: Their mouths are set in a permanent sharp-toothed grin.
The Prankster: Faerie dragons are notorious for using their spell-like abilities for pranking, usually spontaneous acts, but some of these dragonets are capable of putting months of planning into a single spectacular practical joke.
Signature Laugh: According to their AD&D write-up, a faerie dragon's laugh sounds like the tinkling of tiny silver bells.
Stronger with Age: Unlike other dragonets, they pass through something like a true dragon's age categories, gaining new spell-like abilities as they grow older, while their scales cycle through the colors of the rainbow, starting with red and ending as violet.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Their breath weapon is a puff of gas that can cause an affected creature to spend a minute wandering at random or staring off into space in a euphoric state.
Sweet Tooth: They love fruits, honey and cooked pastries, and will go to great lengths to acquire a freshly-baked apple pie.
Telepathy: They have full telepathic communication, but only with other faerie dragons. Fortunately, they can speak Draconic and Sylvan.

Fire Drake

Alignment: True Neutral

Though easily mistaken for a red dragon wyrmling, these aggressive, fire-spitting creatures are much less powerful and only semi-intelligent.

Bloody Murder: A fire drake's blood has a high phosphorous content, and so ignites upon contact with air, dealing a bit of damage to those attacking it in melee with slashing or piercing weapons. This means that, if carefully harvested and properly stored, a fire drake's blood can be bottled and used as a firebomb, or applied to a weapon to make a temporary Flaming Sword.
One-Steve Limit: Averted; these dragonet "fire drakes" are much different beasts from the wyvern-like, (fire) elemental drakes discussed elsewhere.
Playing with Fire: They can send a narrow cone of fire out to 60 feet. This isn't a conventional Breath Weapon, instead the fire drake is spitting its flammable blood.
Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Fire drakes are just smart enough to realize that the updrafts generated from their breath weapon can be used to disrupt other creatures flying overhead. But their burning blood also requires a lot of oxygen, so fire drakes constantly beat their wings even when on the ground to fan themselves, and if their air supply is cut off will asphixiate in half the normal time.

Geyser Dragon

Alignment: True Neutral

These wingless dragonets are comfortable swimming through the boiling water of geothermally-heated springs, but occasionally find their way inside nearby bathhouses built by humanoids.

Birds of a Feather: They're so confident in their power that they're only willing to bond with humanoids as boastfully arrogant as the geyser dragon themself.
Bloody Murder: Like fire drakes, their blood is superheated, erupting in boiling jets that can damage their attackers.
Boisterous Weakling: These dragonets suffer from "delusions of true dragonhood," and have grossly exaggerated notions of their own might. As such, they don't hesitate to attack even creatures much larger than them, which leads to geyser dragons' high mortality rate.
Super Spit: Three times each day, they can project a long line of boiling water that deals fire damage.
Telepathy: They can communicate via empathy with a bonded companion, falling short of full telepathy.

Mole Dragon

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Dour and solitary wingless burrowers with a sadistic streak, leading these dragonets to sometimes associate with the duergar or derro.

Dishing Out Dirt: Mole dragons learn how to cast spells such as dig, stone shape, and wall of stone as they grow older.
Gem Tissue: As a mole dragon ages, their scaly hides become encrusted with gemstones, which serve as their treasure — the older the dragonet, the more gems that can be harvested from its carcass.
Metal Muncher: They eat precious metals such as gold and silver, making mole dragons loathed by dwarves and other mining races.
Sadist: The only humanoids they're willing to bond with are those that enjoy inflicting pain as much as mole dragons do.
Telepathy: They can transmit what they hear to a bonded companion within 300 yards.

Pavilion Dragon

Alignment: True Neutral

Much like tropical birds, these brilliantly-colorful dragonets dwell within the highest branches of the rainforest canopy. Their intelligence, agreeable natures and array of powers make them prized familiars, though pavilion dragons do not willingly leave their forest homes.

Psychic Powers: As they age, pavilion dragons gain various psychoportation, clairsentience and telepathic powers such as dimensional door, clairvoyance and invisibility.
Status Infliction Attack: Their breath weapon, usable three times per day, stuns those who fail their saves, leaving them unable to act for up to eight rounds.
Telepathy: Pavilion dragons are the only dragonet species that boasts full telepathy with their bondmates, and can transmit not only what they see or hear out to 100 yards, but also share complete thoughts.

Pseudodragon

Classification: Dragon (3E, 5E), Natural Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 3 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Good (1E-3E, 5E), Unaligned (4E)

Intelligent lesser dragons that look almost identical to a red dragon, but are no larger than a cat.

Artifact Name: Back in 1E, when it was the only creature besides the real dragons that looked like a proper dragon — four legs, wings, single dragon head — the name "pseudodragon" actually made sense. However, with the addition of many other draconic creatures to the game, as well other dragonets like the faerie dragon, the logic of calling this particular reptilian monster a "false dragon" evaporated. And its status, from 3E onward, as a member of the Dragon creature type makes the name technically inaccurate, to boot.
Beware My Stinger Tail: A pseudodragon's tail ends in a venomous stinger that can put victims into a Forced Sleep.
Chameleon Camouflage: In earlier editions, pseudodragons could alter the coloration of their scales to help blend in with their surroundings.
Head Pet: They're fond of riding on a humanoid's shoulders or head.
Telepathy: They're capable of conveying basic ideas such as affection, curiosity or hunger, or transmitting what they see or hear with a bonded companion.

Dragonflesh Grafter

Dragonflesh grafter (5e)

^{Dragonflesh abomination (5e)}

Classification: Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (grafter), 6 (abomination) (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Dragon-obsessed fleshcrafters who ingest, implant or stitch on dragon body parts in order to become more like the wyrms they revere. Those who survive their self-experimentation may ultimately turn into a dragon-like monster only barely recognizable as having once been humanoid.

Acid Attack: A dragonflesh grafter or abomination can retch or belch a gout of caustic acid.
Artificial Hybrid: Dragonflesh grafters collect dragon parts and incorporate them into their own bodies to emulate dragons.
Dragon Hoard: As a universal effect of their experimentation, grafters become obsessed with treasure and compelled to gather any gold or gems they can, then gaze for hours on end at their hoards.
Healing Factor: Since its body is constantly growing and changing, a dragonflesh abomination can quickly heal from its wounds.
Poisonous Person: Dragonflesh abominations' bodies are surrounded by a noxious miasma that can poison adjacent creatures.
Was Once a Man: These creatures' minds are but a shadow of their former selves, twisted by magical malevolence.

Dragonfly Turtle

Alignment: Unaligned

Also called "hovershells," these bizarre creatures are used as transportation by the wizards who create them.

Defend Command: Like conventional turtles, they can pull their limbs into their shells for extra protection, and in fact dragonfly turtles usually fly like this.
Giant Flyer: Against all reason, dragonfly turtles can not only zip through the air as fast as a giant dragonfly, they can even hover in place with such stability that their riders can fight from their shell without penalty. The wizards who breed such creatures usually use sovereign glue to stick some furniture onto their steeds' 10-foot-long shells to make for a more comfortable ride. However, dragonfly turtles aren't agile enough to dodge incoming missile fire like "normal" giant dragonflies, and if a called shot to a wing deals as little as four points of damage, they're sent crashing to the ground.
Mix-and-Match Critters: They're giant turtles with dragonfly wings and heads. Like dragonfly nymphs, their hatchlings spend the first years of their lives in the water, until their wings fully grow in and they take to the air. Unlike dragonflies, they don't spend the majority of their lives in nymph stage, and can live for about twenty years instead of mere weeks or days after fully maturing.

Dragonkin

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Ogre-sized brutes distantly related to true dragons, and known for their love of magic items.

Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Tribal dragonkin are easily distracted by magic items, and if they detect one will prioritize snatching it from its owner and then flying off with their prize. Cult-trained dragonkin are more focused, and will steal a magic item mid-battle if they can get away with it, but continue fighting afterward.
Barbarian Tribe: Most dragonkin live in primitive, tribal societies, taking what they want from anyone weaker than them. That said, the Cult of the Dragon is known to have taken control of some dragonkin tribes (often through gifts of enchanted trinkets), teaching them discipline and tactics that make them even more dangerous.
Death from Above: When attacking from the air, they can make raking attacks with their front and rear claws at the same time.
Draconic Humanoid: Winged draconic humanoids, no less.
Supernatural Sensitivity: They can detect magic at will, which they use to identify enchanted items to steal.
Too Awesome to Use: Tribal dragonkin have this impression of the magic items they acquire, and never use them in battle for fear of having them stolen away from them.

Dragonnel

^3e

^2e

Classification: Dragon (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E), 2 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (2E), True Neutral (3E, 5E)

Intelligent but animalistic dragons sometimes trained as mounts for humanoids.

Art Evolution: Their 2E art and description sets them up as hybrids between dragons and pteranodons, while their 3E depiction made them look more like draconic pegasi, only for their 5E art to make them more generically dragon-like.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: They are adept at making flyby attacks.
Horse of a Different Color: Some knightly orders breed dragonnels as steeds, though the creatures are intelligent enough to require some degree of diplomacy during their training process. But if successful, dragonnels can prove to be fiercely loyal to and protective of their riders.
Horsing Around: Part of what makes wild dragonnels so dangerous to train is their tendency to feign compliance, take their riders well off the ground, and then suddenly throw them.
Sapient Steed: Varies by edition; 2E dragonnels are only semi-intelligent, 3E dragonnels are just slightly smarter than ogres but capable of speaking Draconic, while 5E dragonnels come closer to human-level intelligence but can only understand speech.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: 3E dragonnels can let out a Mighty Roar once per day that can cause other creatures to become shaken.
Terror-dactyl: Their AD&D incarnation resembles a monstrous, scaly, toothy pterosaur.

Dragonspawn

Dragonspawn abomination (3e)

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Dragon (3E)
Challenge Rating: Varies by base creature and dragon type (3E)
Alignment: Same as creator

Dragon-like creatures made by fusing a subject's essence with that of a draconian. The most stable dragonspawn are made from the likes of humans and elves, while other creatures subjected to the same hideous transformation result in misshapen mutants known as dragonspawn abominations.

For other creatures sometimes called "dragonspawn," see the "Spawn of Tiamat."

Breath Weapon: Dragonspawn gain a breath weapon based on the species of their creator dragon.
Defeat Equals Explosion: When slain, dragonspawn release a small burst of elemental energy that depends upon their creator dragon's type.
Draconic Humanoid: Most dragonspawn are, since the template can be applied to any Humanoid, Giant or Monstrous Humanoid, though since the lastmost category includes centaurs in 3rd Edition, sometimes the result can be something like the abomination pictured instead.
Mutants: No two dragonspawn abominations look alike, as they're prone to having missing or misshapen limbs and other physical deformities. That said, they also gain useful abilities based on those mutations. Some depend upon the abomination's base stock, so a dragonspawn abomination made from a dwarf or gnome can burrow through the ground or wreck foes' weapons, while one made from a minotaur or ogre can fly into a murderous rage or trample enemies. Dragonspawn abominations also roll twice on a table of additional mutations, which can be as simple as stat or skill bonuses, or grant abilities such as a Healing Factor or Weaponized Stench.
Reforged into a Minion: Dragonspawn are essentially artificial half-dragons made by the Dragon Overlords in a process involving a skull totem, an alchemical brew that includes the blood of a draconian, and something from their draconic creator — their own blood, a drop of acidic spittle, a coal ignited by their breath weapon, etc. Most dragonspawn are loyal servitors of their creators who forget their past lives, but a rare few retain their free will and memories.
Synchronization: Dragonspawn's existence is intimately tied to that of the Dragon Overlord that created them. When their creator dies, dragonspawn risk being killed or going insane from the resulting backlash.

Drakkensteed

Classification: Animal (3E), Natural Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 16 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Dragon-descended creatures that normally live in small herds far from civilization, but may rarely be tamed as mounts.

Dragon Ancestry: They're "drakken," creatures with a clear draconic ancestry, but whose dragon blood has diluted to the point that they lack any of their ancestor's supernatural abilities. As such, 3rd Edition drakkensteeds are classified as animals rather than lesser dragons, though 4th Edition goes the other way and gives them some magical attacks.
Horse of a Different Color: It's quite possible to tame and ride these dragonblooded equines, but drakkensteeds are notoriously skittish creatures that fly away from any humanoids, so domesticated drakkensteeds are exceedingly rare (and expensive, to the order of 15,000 gp). But some paladins do end up summoning a drakkensteed to serve as their special mount, gaining a robust and steadfastly loyal steed.
Make Them Rot: 4th Edition introduced a "grave-born" drakkensteed variant, featuring a necrotic Deadly Gaze and Breath Weapon.
Mighty Roar: 4E drakkensteeds can daze nearby foes with a fearsome roar.
Trampled Underfoot: As a special attack, 3rd Edition's drakkensteeds can move at double their land speed and deal trample damage to those they move over.

Drakkoth

Classification: Dragon (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 13 (4E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Unaligned (4E)

Also known as "dracotaurs," these nomadic, tribal beings aggressively defend the jungles and forests they claim as territory.

Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Dracotaurs respect nothing but strength and power, and their tribes are invariably led by their strongest warriors or magic-users.
Beware My Stinger Tail: A dracotaur's tail is lined with strong, sharp spikes that allow it to be swung as an effective weapon.
Fantastic Racism: Dracotaurs and centaurs despise each other, and dracotaurs cherish few foods as much as centaur flesh.
Happiness in Slavery: They venerate and serve true dragons, and willingly give their lives for them.
Lack of Empathy: Dracotaurs are utterly incapable of compassion towards other beings.
Our Centaurs Are Different: As their nickname indicates, drakkoths have the upper body of lizardfolk and the lower body of a wingless dragon. Notably, they despise true centaurs and have this hatred fully reciprocated.
Super Spit: In 3E, they don't really breathe fire so much as they expectorate a glob of sticky spittle that ignites when exposed to air and deals splash damage around the impact site, though unlike alchemist's fire it doesn't continue to burn. 4E instead gives drakkoths a blast of venom for a special attack.

Dray

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 16 (4E)
Playable: 2E, 4E
Alignment: Any

The creations of Dregoth, the Dread King of Giustenal, who remade his servants and subjects in his own image.

Beneath the Earth: The first-generation dray eke out a primitive existence in the fiery cavern of Kragmorta, while the second-generation dray live in the Underground City of New Giustenal, beneath the blasted ruins of Dregoth's original domain.
Draconic Humanoid: They have dragon-like heads, scales, claws and tails, though not wings. This let 4th Edition easily justify using dragonborn to represent the dray in its Dark Sun update.
Fantastic Racism: The first-generation dray consider themselves superior to their successors, whom they distrust, while second-generation dray outright hate their predecessors as living failures. Second-generation dray have also been indoctrinated by Dregoth to view demihumans as worthy only of extermination, while humans are to pitied until they're transformed into dray and achieve perfection.
Flawed Prototype: Dregoth's first attempt at making dray didn't go so well, as the results were bent from mutation, with uneven and mottled scales and jagged claws. He promptly banished these first-generation dray, who survive as best they can, hating their creator for abandoning them while also worshipping Dregoth as a god who may someday bring them back into the fold.
Forced Transformation: Dregoth didn't give any of his people a choice in becoming dray, while any humans who make the trip to New Giustenal will be offered the privilege of undergoing the transformation, whether they want to or not.

Dread

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral (2E), Neutral Evil (3E)

Flying skeletal arms often employed as guardians by their creators.

Eye of Newt: Powdered dread bones have use in "certain preservative magics," or spells of flight, levitation or telekinesis.
Helping Hands: Again, dreads are a set of animated arms that fly around, wielding weapons or clawing foes. They're often used to protect treasure vaults or positioned around dungeon traps, but dreads have also been utilized as sparring partners, or as a literal extra set of hands assisting a wizard with their work.
He Was Right There All Along: Dreads sometimes hide in coffins or bone piles, being overlooked since they obviously aren't a complete skeleton.
Home Field Advantage: 2nd Edition states that dreads in their "prime guard" area can't be turned.
It Can Think: Dreads are officially mindless, but are still capable of following somewhat-complex instructions such as "attack all intruders except elves and creatures displaying this token."
Life Drain: 2E mentions "vampiric" dreads that need to kill at least one living being each year to sustain themselves, but in combat they recover half as many hit points in damage as they deal to other creatures. These vampiric dreads aren't bound to specific sites, and hunt freely.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: In 3rd Edition, dreads have a frightful presence that can leave other creatures shaken.

Dread Blossom

Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Beautiful red-and-black flowers from the Wilderness of the Beastlands, foolishly transplanted to the Material Plane by elves unaware of their bloodthirsty nature.

Foul Flower: Dread blossoms are beautiful but predatory flowers that are capable of flight, and drink the blood of their victims.
The Paralyzer: Their pollen is poisonous, forcing those within a 15-foot radius to save or become paralyzed, at which point the dread blossoms plant themselves in their victim to feed.
The Swarm: An individual dread blossom isn't too dangerous, but they're usually found in swarms of hundreds of flowers, wheeling about like flocks of birds when they aren't resting on their latest meal. All those razor-sharp stems are more than capable of bringing down prey that resists their paralytic pollen.
Vampiric Draining: Their stems are really six-inch-long hollow thorns, which they use to drain blood from victims, dealing Constitution damage.

Dread Guard

Classification: Construct (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Armored guardian constructs that loyally and tirelessly follow their creator's simple commands.

Animated Armor: A dread guard is more or less a magically-animated suit of masterwork armor.
Heavily Armored Mook: They have a high Armor Class and hit point total for their Challenge Rating, which combined with their cold and fire resistance, and construct immunities to various status effects, can make them very tanky opponents for low-level parties. However, dread guards are slow-moving and unsophisticated in combat, making a single attack with whatever weapon they've been armed with.
Mistaken for Undead: Dread guards' Glowing Eyes of Doom inside their dark helmets make them easy to mistake for a form of Warrior Undead, though they're actually constructs little different from Golems.

Dread Ram

Origin: Ghostwalk
Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Undead warbeasts that can smash apart groups of foes with their rotten bulk or rout them with their abilities.

Beast of Battle: Dread rams are most often seen supporting other undead creatures, acting as mounts, shock cavalry, or simple beasts of burden.
Breath Weapon: Once per day, a dread ram can unleash a 10-foot cone of green Cold Fire.
Knockback/Trampled Underfoot: They can do both at once, bull-rushing one foe through another's space to deal trample damage. Dread rams even have special rules simulating a Constitution score for the purposes of calculating bull rush attempts.
Skull for a Head: They look mostly like one-ton, zombified rams, though their heads are fleshless (and have eerie green flames licking from their eye sockets and mouths).
Supernatural Fear Inducer: They have a frightful presence when charging that can leave other creatures shaken.

Dread Warrior

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Undead (3E-4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E, 4E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil, Unaligned (4E)

Undead fighters created immediately after a warrior's death, so they retain some of their intelligence and combat ability.

Artificial Insolence: Dread warriors may be smarter than the average zombie, but they're still pretty stupid. Orders of 12 words or less are no problem, but longer and more complex commands have a cumulative 5% chance per additional word of leading the dread warrior to misinterpret the order and do the exact opposite — standing around and doing nothing instead of attacking, going into a berserk killing frenzy instead of standing down, etc.
Home Field Advantage: In the Realms, they fall victim to this. Dread warriors are servitors of the Red Wizards of Thay, but should the undead be fighting in Rashemen, the powerful magic of the local spirits of the land doubles the chances that dread warriors will misinterpret their orders, and imposes an attack roll penalty if dread warriors are fighting Rashemaar nature spirits or Witches of Rashemen.
Warrior Undead: They're skilled enough to wear armor and wield melee weapons, though complex missile weapons like bows or crossbows are beyond them, and they're too inept to get any attack bonus with thrown weapons like spears or javelins.

Dream Eater

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (5E)

Living nightmares that haunt the elven realm of Silvanesti, which became a warped dreamscape when its ruler unwisely tampered with a magical artifact.

Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: A dream eater twists its appearance into surreal illusions of enemies' worst fears, though one constant is an oversized, smiling mouth. Those who behold it have to save against fear.
Living Dream: Dream eaters are manifestations of nightmares and subconscious terrors.
Nightmare Weaver: Dream eaters envelop their prey in a miasma of its greatest fears, dealing psychic damage and rendering them blinded and restrained. The victim may free themselves with a Wisdom check, or someone else can attempt a Charisma check to convince their friend that their nightmare isn't real, though succeed or fail, that helper will take psychic damage as well.

Dream Serpent

Origin: Eberron
Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: Usually True Neutral

15-foot-long snakes with a mesmerizing gaze and hallucinogenic venom.

Crafted from Animals: Both the drow and yuan-ti of Xen'drik hold dream serpents sacred, and while the latter refuse to harm such aspects of the Devourer, the drow not only hunt the creatures for food, they use the dream serpents' skin for armor, their fangs for weapons, the venom as a poison, and their bones, eyes and a diluted form of their venom in religious ceremonies. Unfortunately, foreign explorers have taken to hunting the dream serpents for their shimmering scales and pearly fangs, leading Xen'drik's natives to attack those who "indulge in what they see as wasteful slaughter of these noble creatures."
Forced Sleep: Their Hypnotic Gaze can put other creatures to sleep for up to six minutes. It's not uncommon for a dream serpent to put a camp sentry to sleep, leading the rest of the camp to rise the next morning and find that one of their number has been dragged off in the night.
It Can Think: At Intelligence 4, dream serpents are smarter than mere animals, enough to avoid antagonizing more powerful creatures, and for some specimens to develop a non-Neutral alignment.
Poisonous Person: Their bite delivers a Wisdom-damaging poison that has the side effect of causing the victim to have vivid and disturbing dreams of jungles filled with thousands of angry serpents the next time they sleep.

Dream Vestige

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 16 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These undead are the conglomeration of countless spirits into the form of an amorphous mass of whispering, moaning mist that seeks to incorporate more minds into itself. The first dream vestige is thought to have been spawned from the combined nightmares of an entire city that perished in a cursed sleep (an atrocity attributed to the demon prince Orcus), but it has since propagated itself numerous times.

Dream Walker: They're capable of entering the Plane of Dreams to take shortcuts when traveling around on the Material Plane, or to cross onto other planes entirely.
Intangibility: As incorporeal as the mist they resemble.
Mind Hive: A downplayed example; dream vestiges drain away their victims' minds, but the only practical application of this is their ability to pick up new languages their victims' knew.
Mind Rape: The lascivious caress of a dream vestige's misty tendrils drains away a portion of the victim's mind, dealing Intelligence damage. Anyone whose Intelligence stat reaches zero as a result of this is then pulled bodily into the dream vestige, vanishing completely.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Dream vestiges have a frightful presence that can affect those who see them attack.
Walking Wasteland: They're surrounded by a desecrating aura that bolsters other undead in their vicinity.

Dromite

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: True Neutral

Sometimes called "bug men" by the ignorant, these small, genderless humanoids possess both insectoid features and latent psionic powers.

Bee People: For the most part subverted, despite their appearance. Dromite castes are based on personality, not biology, and while the Grand Queen and Elected Consort are considered leaders, they're chosen on a yearly basis from a pool of prominent residents, and their main job is to produce eggs.
Fantastic Caste System: Dromites are divided into four castes, based on both their temperament and its associated energy type. The Fire Caste are quick to anger as well as laughter, the Glimmer Caste are always zipping around somethere, the Ice Caste are analytical and rational, and the Voice Caste are artists who revel in song. Aside from a tendency for those of the Voice Caste to become performers, the dromite castes don't seem locked into specific societal roles, and are free to mix and mingle with one another.
Hidden Elf Village: Dromite city-hives are built underground and kept secret from outsiders, with only a few well-hidden entrances — and some cities are completely inaccessible without the use of psionic powers. Despite favoring hidden settlements, dromites seem driven to spend at least some time on the surface, and will often take up residence in other races' cities who accept them.
Insectoid Aliens: They have patches of chitin on their skin, a pair of small atennae, and compound eyes, though only four limbs.
No Biological Sex: The vast majority of dromites are genderless beings with no sexual characteristics, with the exception of a city-hive's Grand Queen and Elected Consort.
Polyamory: Just because they're sexless doesn't mean dromites don't form emotional attachments. Dromites who develop deep relationships with one another can join together in "life-bonds," which can be likened to marriages, except they commonly contain more than two dromites, and new members are brought into the life-bond as older ones die off.
Psychic Powers: Dromites are latent psionicists, and can produce an energy ray at least once per day that deals cold, fire, electricity or sonic damage, as appropriate for the dromite's caste.
Super-Senses: Their antennae give them the benefit of the Scent ability and Blind-Fight as a bonus feat.

Drow

Classification: Humanoid (3E), Fey Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 11 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Playable: 2E-5E
Alignment: Neutral Evil, Evil (4E)

An estranged elven subrace that has settled the Underdark, infamous for their cruel matriarchal society, dedication to their evil spider-goddess Lolth, and their burning hatred for surface-dwelling elves. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Drow Transformations

The spider-goddes Lolth is fickle and cruel, prone to suddenly "testing" her faithful and punishing those who fall short of her expectations. Such unfortunate drow can be transformed into monstrous blends of elf and arachnid.

The Exile: Drow who are transformed for displeasing their goddess are kicked out of their community and forbidden from returning. Most survive in the wilds of the Underdark as best they can, though some haunt the fringes of drow society to pursue past vendettas.
Make an Example of Them: While drow shun these creatures as failures, they also tolerate their presence (from a distance) as living examples of the price of failing the Spider Queen.
Was Once a Man: Every one of these creatures was once a normal drow, but now they're horrid hybrid creatures, some of them barely intelligent.

Chwidencha

Classification: Aberration (3E), Fey (4E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E), 13 (4E)
Alignment: True Neutral (3E), Chaotic Evil (4E)

Also known as "spider leg horrors," these monsters are little more than skittering predators.

Achilles' Heel: Chwidenchas are vulnerable to sonic damage, and will flee from loud, high-pitched noises.
An Arm and a Leg: A chwidencha's legs can be targeted and severed while they're grappling a victim, but the lost limbs will regenerate within a day.
Dig Attack: Chwidenchas typically hunt by burrowing beneath a layer of earth, then attacking foes they detect with their tremorsense.
Giant Spider: They're basically a Large mass of writhing spider legs that makes it hard to see the creature's central body until it's dead.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Anything struck by one of their spider limbs is in danger of being grappled and impaled.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Other creatures who see a chwidencha charging or attacking have to save or become shaken.
Wall Crawl: As expected, they have a climb speed to scale sheer surfaces. That said, some Underdark denizens keep chwidenchas at the bottom of metal-lined pits for use as living garbage disposals, or to get rid of prisoners.

Drider

Classification: Aberration (3E), Fey Humanoid (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 14 (4E), 6 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil, Evil (4E)

Dark elf from the waist up and giant spider from the waist down, driders are wretched creatures who owe their miserable existence to Lolth's displeasure.

Poisonous Person: Their bite attacks deal Strength damage in 3rd Edition, or additional poison damage in 5th Edition.
Reforged into a Minion: Some free-thinking younger drow have broken from tradition by reasoning that a drider's transformation might be a way of castigating an individual but granting a boon to drow society as a whole — yes, they failed one of Lolth's tests, but they gained some useful physical and magical abilities from her curse. Such drow have thus taken on driders as minions, putting them beneath true drow but above other non-drow servants. Since this is a step up from exile in the Underdark, these open-minded drow have no shortage of driders willing to work for them.
Spider People: Dark elves fused centaur-style with spiders. Why Lolth considers it a punishment to transform her people into a shape similar to her own has never been explained — indeed, 4th Edition portrays the transformation into a drider as a sign of Lolth's favor rather than displeasure.
Wall Crawl: They unsurprisingly can imitate the spider climb spell, and also ignore any movement penalties imposed by spiderwebs.
Weakened by the Light: Like normal drow, driders take penalties on rolls made in sunlight.

Fithrichen

Classification: Aberration (3E), Fey Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 12 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Also known simply as "shunned," these miserable creatures survive as they can in the Underdark, holding vain hope of regaining Lolth's favor.

Casting a Shadow: They can generate a cloud of magical darkness.
Cephalothorax: They're little more than tumorous, pallid heads on spider legs.
Cruel Mercy: While drow will defend themselves if one of the shunned attacks them, they never actively hunt fithrichen, believing that they shouldn't interfere with Lolth's punishment.
Enemy Summoner: They can disgorge a Spider Swarm mid-combat that then follows their orders.
Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Shunned have no natural predators, since animals and vermin can sense an inherent "wrongness" to their meat.
Super-Scream: Their 3rd Edition rules let them loose a horrid wail that can sicken creatures.

Mithrenda

Classification: Fey Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These mutated arachnids are cautious ambush predators, lurking in the shadows before reeling prey into range of their maws.

It Can Think: While mithrenda may beat chwidencha in terms of monstrous appearance, unlike the latter, mithrenda retain most of their intelligence, and can even speak.
Projectile Webbing: They can hurl webs to immobilize targets, and if that's not enough...
What a Drag: Once a target has been immobilized by a mithrenda's web, the creature can spend an action reeling them in, dealing damage in the process even before taking a bite out of them if they get close enough.

Scorrow

Origin: Eberron
Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

The drow of Eberron revere scorpions rather than spiders, and as such their drider analogues are chimeric blends of drow and giant scorpion. Unlike driders, the scorrow are a true-breeding race, and are respected by drow.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Being scorpion from the waist down, scorrow have a venomous stinger tail.
Born as an Adult: Scorrow young hatch fully formed and are expected to travel with the colony from birth.
Forced Transformation: The scorrow claim that they were once the most skilled tribe of hunters among the drow of Xen'Drik, so the god Vulkoor sent a giant scorpion to their village that stung every member of it, triggering a painful transformation into the first scorrow. While they had no choice in the matter, the scorrow consider their current state a great honor, and their drow kin agree.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Scorrow society revolves around the hunt, and they're only interested in Worthy Opponents, to the extent they'll let "lesser" prey pass by and instead search for a greater challenge.
Scorpion People: A scorrow has the upper body of a drow and the lower body of a giant scorpion.

Drowned

Classification: Undead (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E); 2 (drowned blade), 3 (drowned ascetic), 4 (drowned assassin), 9 (drowned master) (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Also called drowned ones or sea zombies, these sopping, sloshing, swollen undead exist to inflict choking death upon others.

Deceased and Diseased: 5E drowned ones carry a magical disease called bluerot, which causes the victim to break out in painful blue boils.
Hive Mind: 5E drowned ones are linked together by a mystical telepathic network, allowing them to communicate and coordinate with one another over great distances.
An Ice Person: The body of a drowned master radiates unnatural cold, chilling anyone unwise enough to touch it or attack it in melee.
"Instant Death" Radius: In 3rd Edition, everything that comes within 30 feet of a drowned is treated as if they were underwater and at risk of drowning. Creatures can hold their breath with a Constitution check, but each round that check gets harder, and as soon as they fail, they fall to the ground unconscious. Unless someone saves them, a fallen victim will hit -1 HP in the next round, and the round after that will expire.
It Can Think: Don't mistake the silence of the drowned ones for stupidity. They may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they're smarter than any normal zombie, and their Hive Mind allows them to plot and coordinate large-scale attacks on coastal settlements.
Last Chance Hit Point: 5E drowned ones have the same Undead Fortitude trait as regular zombies, allowing them to withstand a hit that would otherwise knock them down to 0 hit points with 1 instead.
Make Them Rot: A drowned master can inflict necrotic damage by touching someone with its tentacles or spraying them with its foul ink.
Malevolent Masked Men: The drowned assassin wears a driftwood mask over its rotting face. It can whip the mask off at a moment's notice, scaring the living daylights out of anyone who happens to glimpse its repulsive visage.
Tendrils of Darkness: A drowned master's original legs have withered away to be replaced by shadowy tentacles. Their touch drains life, rots flesh, and spreads the bluerot disease.

Dryad

Classification: Fey (3E, 5E), Fey Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 9 (4E), 1 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Good (3E), Unaligned (4E), True Neutral (2E, 5E)

Beautiful but shy feminine nature spirits, magically bound to specific oak trees.

Charm Person: While there are plenty of stories about dryads growing enamored of handsome travelers, charming them, and bringing them back to their trees, dryads are just as likely to "recruit" interlopers to deal with threats like loggers.
Departure Means Death: Dryads in 3rd Edition will sicken and die in a matter of hours if taken more than 300 yards from their home oaks.
Friend to All Living Things: 3rd Edition dryads share a druid's "Wild Empathy" class feature, while in 5th Edition they can speak with plants and animals.
Gender Equals Breed: If a dryad conceives with a satyr, there's an even chance of the child being either a dryad or a satyr, depending on their sex.
Our Nymphs Are Different: Dryads resemble beautiful elven women, whose hair and skin change color with the seasons — they both turn red and white in the fall and winter, respectively; in the spring and summer, their skin turns tan and their hair green. Since all dryads are female, they rely on other species for reproduction — generally, a dryad will have children with either a magically enthralled human or elf, in which case the child will always be a dryad, or with a satyr, in which case there's an even chance of the child being either a dryad girl or a satyr boy. A young dryad will live with her mother until she reaches adulthood, at which point she will seek a tree of her own to bond to.
Synchronization: 5th Edition notes that dryads suffer as their bound oaks take damage, and will descend into madness should their trees be destroyed.
Teleportation: 5th Edition dryads have the tree stride ability, allowing them to step into one living tree and step out of another up to sixty feet away from the first.

Hamadryad

Classification: Fey Humanoid (4E)
Playable: 4E
Alignment: True Neutral

Cousins of dryads who are able to roam further from their oaks, allowing them to patrol and protect their home woodlands, or venture into the wider world.

Charm Person: Like normal dryads, 2E hamadryads know the spell and use it on handsome males, but they're less possessive of their victims, instead using their magic to recruit someone for a specific task, such as defending trees from woodcutters. Once that task is complete, the charmed male is allowed to leave the forest... or is left by a dryad's tree, where the guy might well be charmed again.
Gaia's Vengeance: While most hamadryads are content to remain in their home woodlands, in rare circumstances, some natural (or man-made) disaster drives them to action to save the forest. Some hamadryads even take up adventuring and leave their forests, "seeking justice or revenge for the destruction of their woodlands."
Intrigued by Humanity: Other hamadryads, usually those who live close to a mortal community, might observe something in civilization that they feel that they lack, and thus leave their forest behind to answer "their heart's yearning call."
One-Gender Race: Like dryads, hamadryads are exclusively female.
Our Nymphs Are Different: 4th Edition paints hamadryads as an intermediate step between nymphs and dryads, who have given up some of the innocence and whimsy of the former to tap into the power of the latter. As such, hamadryads can shift between a nymph form, appearing as a beautiful fey humanoid with hair and eyes the color of autumn leaves, or appear more tree-like when using their supernatural abilities. They also have racial abilities related to nymphs' incredible beauty, letting them distract or dazzle opponents.
Plant Person: They're not classified as such, but have many plant-like traits. Hamadryads don't need to eat or sleep, but instead meditate for four hours while basking in sunlight, soaking in water, or connecting with bare earth to gain sustenance and the benefits of a night's rest. Leaves and acorns might hang from their hair, and hamadryads' skin takes on the appearance of carved wood as they tap into their natural power to gain the resilience of oak, or rejuvenate themself by stepping into a nearby tree.
Spoiled Brat: Hamadryads in 4E are noted to have retained nymphs' passionate, impulsive natures, and are accustomed to being able to wrap mortals around their finger, and being treated almost like royalty by other fey beings. As such, they have trouble understanding why someone would tell them "no," and when denied, might tap into their dryad power to get what they want through force.
Transflormation: At the end of her life, a hamadryad feels drawn back to her home wood, plants her feet in the earth, and turns into a tree that resembles her nymph form. Other fey creatures tend to make their homes around a hamadryad-tree.

Oaken Defender

Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 12 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Good

Masses of thorny, tendriled vegeation that usually lie dormant beneath a dryad's sacred grove, but will burst from the soil to defend her if she is threatened.

Bizarre Alien Reproduction: When an oaken defender reaches a thousand years of age, an acorn from their dryad's tree begins incubating within a follicle inside the oaken defender, developing into a cyst that will grow and leech nutrients from its parent over the course of the next century, until a new oaken defender is born by bursting from the body of the old one, killing it. During this long process, the dryad tends to the old oaken defender, comforting it and helping it say its farewells.
Combat Tentacles: They have a total of six tentacle-like limbs, and can attack with two of them each round.
Guardian Entity: They're such for dryads, slumbering for centuries at a time until they're needed.
Psychic Link: Oaken defenders have an empathic link with the dryad(s) of their grove, and can sense their needs or feelings out to 900 feet. They also have the ability to find others of their kind as per the discern location spell, and will come to each other's aid if a threat is too much for a single oaken defender to handle.
Treants: Oaken defenders are disc-like masses of spiky wood some 15 feet across, with the suggestion of an angry face covering their upper surface.
Underground Monkey: Their entry suggests that other fey might have their own equivalents to oaken defenders — an oread might have a "rocky defender" that appears as a giant gemstone, a fossergrim might have a "cascade defender," and so forth.

Verdant Reaver

Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Should a dryad keep a charmed humanoid with her for long enough, it will transform into a plant creature wholly devoted to its mistress.

Fertile Feet: Undergrowth springs up around a verdant reaver's feet, even if it moves across bare stone, but this effect only lasts until it moves on. Mechanically, this makes the spaces immediately around a reaver count as difficult terrain, and it lets them make a "verdant rend" attack if both its slam attacks hit, as the undergrowth tears at its target for additional damage.
Happiness in Slavery: Verdant reavers all have a need to serve a "mistress," and should their dryad be slain, they'll wander the forests in search of another female (or apparent female) to serve. If they go a year and a day without finding a new mistress, a verdant reaver will perish.
Plant Person: Verdant reavers are hulking plant creatures that would stand 12 to 15 feet tall if not for their hunched posture, and resemble humanoids built from fallen logs or driftwood.
Was Once a Man: Each verdant reaver was originally a humanoid that spent an extended period as a dryad's charmed thrall. After a year and a day of such service, the humanoid finds itself rooted to the ground, and painfully transforms into a plant creature over the course of another day — trying to cut the victim loose kills them instantly, and unless freed by remove disease or remove curse before sundown, the creature forever forgets its past existence and becomes a verdant reaver. Evil or Neutral dryads use this process to acquire loyal servants, while Good dryads might discover it by accident, and from that point on will only create a verdant reaver to punish a thrall they think deserves such a fate.

Duckbunny

Alignment: Unaligned

Magical crossbreeds often created as practice by novice wizards who don't want to jump straight into experimenting with the likes of owlbears.

Familiar: On occasion, duckbunnies can serve as such. "As far as familiars go, a wizard could certainly do worse, but most wizards are less than pleased to see a duckbunny waddle up to them after the intensive preparation and effort involved in the casting of the find familiar spell."
Fantastic Livestock: Duckbunny eggs are delicious, their meat can be substituted in rabbit stew, and both are quick to replenish since the creatures are so fast-breeding. Their hides can also be used to make excellent insulated boots, capes or cloaks. Duckbunnies' quacking can also serve as an alarm system, though they're otherwise useless as guard beasts.
Harmless Enemy: Duckbunnies literally cannot deal damage. Their only "attack" is to snap at a threat's fingers or nose with their bill, which might leave the target so surprised at such aggression from a harmless-looking creature that they lose their initiative roll, giving the duckbunny a chance to waddle to safety.
Mix-and-Match Critters: They're magical blends of ducks and snowshoe hares, resulting in a platypus-like creature, though the duckbunny's long ears help distinguish them from those animals. They live in burrows like rabbits, but lay eggs, and their young are covered in downy feathers. Duckbunnies are much more agile in the water than on land, where they waddle like ducks instead of bounding like rabbits.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: While there are several practical reasons to raise duckbunnies, their entry admits that "Finally, and most importantly to some, duckbunnies are almost irresistibly cute, with their big eyes, floppy ears, and soft, downy fur. It is no coincidence that a majority of the wizards who have created duckbunnies in the laboratory have young daughters at home, and it must be stated that duckbunnies do make wonderful pets."

Duergar

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E, 5E), 4 (4E)
Playable: 2E-5E
Alignment: Lawful Evil

An embittered and cruel dwarven subrace that builds impregnable strongholds in the Underdark, where they toil in workshops, train for war, and plot revenge against their kin. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Steeder

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E); 1/4 (male), 1 (female) (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Giant spiders used as steeds and beasts of burden by the duergar.

Deadlier Than The Male: Female steeders are bigger and nastier than their male counterparts. The duergar ride the females into battle while using the males as draft animals.
Giant Spider: Steeders resemble spiders around the size of an ox.
Horse of a Different Color: They're enormous spiders which the duergar kavalrachni ride into battle. This is a somewhat risky proposition, though, as steeders are aggressive predators and prone to turning on their riders unless very well-trained.
Punny Name: Their name is a portmanteau of "steed" and "spider".
Wall Crawl: Steeders secrete a viscous substance from their legs and feet, which allows them to climb along walls and ceilings.

Dullahan

Origin: Ravenloft
Classification: Undead (5E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (5E)

The remnants of those who let vengeance consume them, dullahans haunt the places they were slain, butchering innocents in the search for their decapitated head.

Degraded Boss: Previously the only headless horseman in Ravenloft was the Headless Rider, a Darklord haunting a bridge that serves as a small domain. While he's still around in 5th Edition, the same book also introduces stats for generic dullahans.
Flaming Skulls: Implied with their "fiery skull" ranged attack.
Headless Horseman: Headless riders that run around and murder innocents.
Hellish Horse: While not mentioned in their statblock, the accompanying illustration shows a dullahan riding a nightmare.
Sequential Boss: The first time they're reduced to 0 hit points, a dullahan revives at 71% HP, gains new Mythic Actions in combat, and summons three death's heads to boot.
Super-Scream: As a Mythic Action, a dullahan can loose an unearthly shriek from their neck-stump, dealing psychic damage and potentially granting the dullahan some temporary hit points.

Dune Reaper

Origin: Dark Sun
Classifcation: Magical Besat (3E), Aberrant Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (drone), 9 (warrior) (3E); 12 (drone), 15 (warrior) (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Large, scythe-clawed pack hunters who roam the sandy wastes in search of prey.

Black Widow: 2nd Edition states that a dune reaper matron kills a male after mating, then lays her eggs in his corpse.
Crafted from Animals: Dune Reapers' arm blades are often converted into swords, while their scales can be used in shields or armor.
Deadly Lunge: They prefer to lie in wait for prey, crouched atop a dune overlooking a trail, then pounce with a howling wail.
Evil Smells Bad: One of their disquieting traits is the "sickly sweet smell of decay" that constantly clings to them.
Gladiator Games: Dune reapers' ferocity and intimidating appearance makes them highly valued in Athas' arenas, and many sorcerer-kings enjoy unleashing one just after one gladiator is about to deal the killing blow to another.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Their eyes glow with an eerie red luminescence.
Hive Caste System: Dune reapers operate out of nests built into the base of cliffs near a water source, and each pride is led by a single female matron, who is the only reaper allowed to breed. She is supported by a cadre of female warriors, each of whom directs a specific male drone, who are the smallest and dumbest of the group, and bound to their female director by pheromones for life. The drones will never attack their warrior, but may fight with other females should she interfere with their superior's orders. A warrior may in turn challenge her matron for leadership in a fight to the death.
It Can Think: While dune reaper drones are only semi-intelligent, warriors and matrons can be smarter than ogres.
Monstrous Cannibalism: Dune reapers are known to turn on each other when food is scarce, while 4th Edition adds that their hatchlings will kill and eat their weaker siblings.
Starfish Language: They communicate with each other through "a complex system of sound, motion, and scents," and can relay specifics about potential prey's location, quantity and distance through a "dance" combined with sounds and odors.
Weaponized Teleportation: 4th Edition adds specialized drones known as "shrieks," which can leap through space-time, reappearing a round later in a nearby square with a Super-Scream that deals damage and Knock Back.

Dune Stalker

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Hunched and gangly humanoids native to the Paraelemental Plane of Magma, sometimes summoned to the Material Plane on missions of evil.

Crafted from Animals: Their bones are too strong to be worked, and their hides are too abrasive to use as leather... but make for good sandpaper.
Exact Words: This can be the bane or boon of a dune stalker. Much like invisible stalkers, they're summoned by mortals for a general or specified mission. Since dune stalkers hate being on the Material Plane, they'll seek to fulfil the literal terms of their mission and go home as quickly as possible, regardless of whether the intended objective is complete. But sometimes, a summoner's badly-phrased instructions may mean that even if a dune stalker fulfils the intent of its mission, it's unable to meet its literal terms, trapping the creature on the Material Plane indefinitely. In such cases, the dune stalker will vent its frustration by killing anything it comes across.
Kiss of Death: A dune stalker's most feared ability is its so-called "kiss of death," in which it presses its lips or face against a victim and emits sonic vibrations that can, on a failed save, cause a One-Hit Kill.
Scarily Competent Tracker: Dune stalkers are infamous for being able to detect any trail less than a day old, and have the Improved Tracking ability in 3rd Edition.
The Speechless: Dune stalkers are smarter than the average humanoid, and can understand orders in Common or Terran, they just never attempt to communicate.
Super-Scream: They can emit a loud, rasping cough that replicates a shout spell, deafening and dealing damage to those in its cone of effect.

Dune Trapper

Origin: Dark Sun
Alignment: Unaligned

False oases that swallow those who stop to drink.

Chest Monster: A variant; rather than disguising themselves as a treasure chest, dune trappers take the form of something far more valuable in a desert — a source of fresh water.
Planimal: They're bizarre creatures, "some form of symbiotic/parasitic plant-animal that defies traditional classification." Their mouths are about an acre wide, while their roots can extend for miles underground, tapping into hidden water sources to create the shallow pools the dune trappers put in their mouths to lure in prey. They can also share some of their water supply with conventional plant life, which grows around their mouths to help sell the illusion of safety.
Swallowed Whole: When a victim stops to drink at the pool in the victim of the dune trapper, the creature pulls itself down the pit it lurks in. Anyone who fails two Dexterity checks automatically ends up in the dune trapper's gullet to take acid damage until they're liquified, unable to do anything but attempt psionic attacks.

Dune Winder

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Desert-dwelling relatives of the remorhaz, named for their sidewinding movement and feared for "tenderizing" prey against their bristly, venomous bodies.

Breath Weapon: Once per hour, a dune winder can breathe a line of fire.
Defeat Equals Explosion: If defeated, a dunewinder explodes, sending spiked flesh flying — this damages all foes within 60 feet and potentially poisons them.
He Was Right There All Along: Dune winders use their coloration to blend in with the sand and ambush prey. They have a respectable racial bonus to Hide checks, enhanced in sandy conditions, to offset their Huge size penalty.
Poisonous Person: A dune winder's spines carry a Constitution-damaging poison, which is applied to victims they enwrap and shred with their hides.
Sand Worm: They're 40-foot-long, desert-dwelling, worm-like monsters that can sense prey moving across the sand through vibrations, though they're faster winding across the surface than burrowing beneath it, and lack a "swallow whole" attack.

Dusanu

Origin: Mystara
Classification: Plant (3E), Shadow Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 7 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral, Unaligned (4E)

Also known as "rot fiends," these ambulatory, mold-covered skeletons are easily mistaken for undead, but are actually animated by a fungal colony.

Festering Fungus: The real enemy here is the fungus that is puppeting the skeleton, not the bones.
Glowing Eyes: They aren't the Glowing Eyelights of Undeath, but glowing waste fumes from the dusanu fungal colony, that happen to be escaping the skeleton's eye sockets.
Mistaken for Undead: They look like yet another variety of undead, but aren't damaged by positive energy, and their spongy, infested bones make bludgeoning weapons, the damage type most effective against skeletons, all but useless against them.
It Can Think: A dusanu's spores operate as a small Hive Mind, which is actually as intelligent as the average human, there's just no account of successful communication with one.
Poisonous Person: Dusanu shed spores in combat that can infest other creatures, causing what starts as an itchy rash but will soon cause the victim's body to erupt in yellowish mold, with death soon following. Or in gameplay terms, in AD&D victims are unable to benefit from curative magic and have to make death saving throws, while in 3rd Edition victims take heavy Constitution damage.
The Virus: Those who succumb to a dusanu's spores will rise as a new rot fiend a few days later.

Duskling

Classification: Fey (3E)
Challenger Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Any Neutral

Extraplanar fey who are as innately bound to incarnum as a dryad is to her tree.

Book Dumb: Dusklings are hardy but have a racial penalty to Intelligence, and "disdain strict eduction and learning."
Earthy Barefoot Character: They're wild, emotional, fey beings who favor the wilderness, and prefer going barefoot. Duskling culture is generally more comfortable with feet than others, so they don't consider it rude to prop their feet up on things, while lovers will commonly exchange anklets and foot massages as signs of affection.
Lost in Translation: In-universe, duskling idioms can sound strange to other Sylvan speakers, and can make no sense when literally translated to Common: "let's cut these chains" (let's get out of here), "I turned it blue" (I changed my mind), "you smelted him" (you dealt a mortal wound), etc. Their roleplaying notes suggest duskling players drop unfamiliar idioms and aphorisms in their speech.
Mage Species: They have the incarnum subtype, gravitate towards the totemist class, and always have at least one point of essentia to draw upon.
Chevaril: Use incarnum? I am incarnum.
Oxymoronic Being: It's noted that the duskling mindset can be quite paradoxical, as they hate restrictions and reject authority, but value family ties and are fiercely loyal to their friends. "The key to roleplaying a duskling is to acknowledge only those ties and obligations that the duskling chooses to accept."
The Quiet One: Dusklings "use few words but spit them out in a rapid-fire stream," then let others speak their piece.
Sprint Shoes: They can invest essentia to boost their land movement speed by five feet per point of essentia, though only if they're wearing no more than light armor and carrying a light load.
Wandering Culture: Duskling clans are nomadic, "simply because they are incapable of settling in a fixed location." They'll linger for at most a month in a given location, setting up tents or just sleeping in the open air.

Dust Blight

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Stooped, bloodthirsty humanoids that can burrow through the sand with ease.

Arch-Enemy: Asherati hunt dust blights without hesitation or remorse, which along with the dust blight's ability to quickly burrow through sand has led to speculation that they're former asherati transformed by a deep desert curse.
Evil Is Visceral: Their bodies look to be composed of ash, but have rivulets of blood flowing across them like exposed veins. Dust blights don't have an actual "drain blood" attack like vampires, but they consume the blood of living creatures to survive, otherwise they'll dry up and blow away.
A Handful for an Eye: Dust blights make use of the Sand Dancer feat in combat, kicking up sand with their tumbling movements to blind opponents.
Horse of a Different Color: Dust blights have domesticated ashworms, and some have learned to ride the beasts.

Dust Wight

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Former earth elementals now reduced to crumbling, dusty figures of eroding stone.

Elemental Embodiment: They were creatures of elemental earth, now they're Undead with the Earth subtype.
Mooks Ate My Equipment: Their "Crumbling Touch" ability makes a dust wight's attacks deal damage to any stone or metal armor worn by their target (or the target itself, if it's something like an iron golem or shield guardian). If this destroys a piece of armor, the dust wight gains temporary hit points.
Non-Human Undead: You can't get less human than an undead elemental.
Taken for Granite: The dusty cloud that surrounds these undead can petrify creatures that come within 5 feet of them.

Dvati

Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Any Good or Neutral (2E), Neutral Good (3E)

A humanoid race from the Outlands consisting entirely of sets of identical twins, each effectively one soul in two bodies.

Can't Live Without You: Dvati lore holds that their souls burn so brightly that one body is not enough to contain them. If one dvati twin dies, the other takes unhealable health (in 2E) or ability (in 3E) damage from the shock and loss of the other half of their soul until either they die too or the other twin is raised/resurrected. If it's impossible for their other half to be revived, a surviving dvati twin usually chooses ritual suicide rather than waiting to wither away.
Doppelganger Link: In addition to their Twin Telepathy, the twins can know the health and mental state of each other by concentrating a bit. This mental link also means that some powers targeting them will affect both, notably mind-affecting and personal spells, as well as Level Drain.
Dual Wielding: 2nd Edition states that dvati are naturally ambidextrous, automatically gaining proficiency in two-weapon fighting.
Language Equals Thought: Unsurprisingly, dvati culture focuses heavily on the concept of duality and the number two, and Dvati doesn't have a singular pronoun.
Magic Music: Dvati have natural song powers, notably the "echo attack": by combining their voices into one maddening cacophony, a pair of twins can confuse a creature they flank. In 3rd edition, their favored class is Bard.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Or Unusual Race in this case — enough so that their entry in the Dragon Compendium comes with a warning label, since the dvati's racial mechanics are completely unprecedented. Their two separate bodies are played as a single character gaining class levels as usual, with their hit points split between the twins (outside of the Constitution bonus). Either twin can trigger a class ability, but any limited-use abilities or spells are expended from the same "pool", so dvati mages don't get double the spell slots. In the case of magic, both twins have to cast the spell at the same time for it to go off, though if one twin casts an ongoing touch spell on themself, they can shift it to the other twin as a move action. Physical effects such as petrification affect one dvati without harming the other, but if one twin falls victim to a mind-influencing effect, so does the other, and any negative levels apply to them both. And so on.
The Noseless: Dvati's noses are a barely protruding bump with two slits.
Precision-Guided Boomerang: They favor weapons like throwing knives and shuriken, and have developed the tvan'th, an S-shaped throwing blade that can return to the wielder if thrown correctly.
Single-Minded Twins: Played with; dvati are one soul in two bodies, but dvati twins are fond of debating philosophy, with each twin taking a different viewpoint from which to question their own preconceptions and arrive at a higher truth. This skill makes dvati excellent diplomats and peacemakers, as each twin takes a different side, then finds areas of agreement to bring them together.
Theme Twin Naming: A pair of twins will very often adopt such names to interact with non-dvati — Xephon and Xephat, Lia and Kira, etc. They have a tendency to forget which twin is using which name, however, and thus they will sometimes switch.
Twin Telepathy: Each pair of dvati twins can communicate with each other telepathically over any distance, even across different planes of existence.
The Unpronounceable: The Dvati language requires two voices used in unison, and is more sung than spoken, dvati being natural singers. Non-dvati can learn it, but it's very difficult. As a result, the twins will use Common names to interact with other races rather than their own, unpronounceable one.
Uncanny Valley: Dvati are aware that their appearance — slim, elven builds, chalk-white skin, dark hair, no real nose to speak of, and solid blue eyes — tends to unnerve other races, so they often wear hooded cloaks around strangers.
Wonder Twin Powers: Dvati have to act in unison to cast any spell, but several spells that would affect only one person can affect them both. They can also use their voices in unison to confuse a foe.

Dwarf

Hill dwarf (3e)

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E), 4 (4E)
Playable: 1E-5E
Alignment: Lawful Good

Stout and stalwart humanoids famed for their craftsmanship and mighty mountain strongholds. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Dweomervore

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Dragon (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Small dragons who snatch magic items to feed upon.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Their tails are covered in ravor-sharp barbs that cause bleeding wounds, inflicting Damage Over Time.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Dweomervores reproduce asexually, draining all the charges from a magic item over ten minutes and then laying an egg ten days later.
It Can Think: These dragons are highly intelligent and fully capable of speech, enhanced by their tongues ability. Dweomervores thus tend to set themselves up as the heads of small Thieves Guilds specializing in pilfering the magic items they eat. They also know magic like invisibility, detect magic and blur to aid in their larceny.
Magic Eater: As their name suggests, dweomervores feed upon magic. Any magic item like a staff or wand that it puts in its mouth loses several charges each round, healing the dweomervore in the process.
Mind over Matter: Their Breath Weapon is a telekinetic effect that functions similarly to the telekinesis spell, but dweomervores have such fine control over it that they can also use try and use it to pilfer small items from their owners undetected. They actually prefer to try and steal magic wands and the like this way, without resorting to outright combat.

Characters / Dungeons And Dragons Creatures D

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Daelkyr Creations

Akleu

Dolgaunt

Dolghast

Dolgrim

Dolgrue

Kyra

Opabinia

Xenostelid

Xorbeast

Farastu

Kelubar

Shator

Battletitan

Prismasaurus

Apocalypse Frog Swarm

Bronze Locust Swarm

Deathraven Swarm

Sunfly Swarm

Crow's Nest Dragon

Faerie Dragon

Fire Drake

Geyser Dragon

Mole Dragon

Pavilion Dragon

Pseudodragon

Drow Transformations

Chwidencha

Drider

Fithrichen

Mithrenda

Scorrow

Hamadryad

Oaken Defender

Verdant Reaver

Steeder

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