Dungeons And Dragons Creatures S Part One / Characters

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/DungeonsAndDragonsCreaturesSPartOne

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 (in which Good encompasses Neutral Good and Chaotic Good, Unaligned encompasses the morally neutral alignments, and Evil encompasses Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil from other game editions), assume that the other alignment holds true for all other editions. Finally, the "Always Neutral" alignment listed in the first three editions for nonsapient creatures has been equated with the "Unaligned" alignment of 5th Edition.

open/close all folders

Sa-Sn

Sacred Watcher

Classification: Deathless (3E)
Challenge Rating: As base creature +2 (3E)
Alignment: Any good

These virtuous souls gave their lives while guarding someone, but linger on the mortal plane as deathless guardians until their charges no longer need their protection.

Guardian Entity: Sacred watchers normally follow their charges on the Ethereal Plane, but should danger threaten, they manifest and fight to defend them. They're also constantly aware of their ward's status, and can instantly teleport to their location, even across planes.
Healing Hands: Five times per day, sacred watchers can channel positive energy through a touch to heal the living, or disrupt the undead.
Intangibility: Sacred watchers are naturally ethereal, and have to manifest on the Material Plane to affect things there.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Sacred watchers are basically ghosts that haunt an individual rather than a location, except they're deathless creatures comprised of positive energy rather than undead animated by negative energy.
Revive Kills Zombie: Explicitly averted; while deathless share many traits with undead, they're healed by positive energy and harmed by negative energy, the same as living creatures. This also means that many spells such as consecrate and desecrate have the opposite effects on deathless as they would on conventional undead.
Undying Loyalty: Quite literally, as they are the souls of bodyguards who refuse to pass on until someone else assumes responsibility over their charge. Even if "killed," they'll usually return after a few days.

Sahuagin

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 6 (4E), 1/2 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil (4E)

Piscine humanoids known as "sea devils" for their bloodthirst and savagery. They war with every other race in the ocean, and launch regular raids against coastal settlements.

Absolute Xenophobe: Sahuagin society is orderly, ritualized, and dedicated to the eradication of everything not sahuagin.
The Beastmaster: All sahuagin can communicate telepathically with sharks. They use this power to command sharks in battle.
The Berserker: Like sharks, sahuagin can fly into a blood frenzy after scenting blood in the water or in response to taking damage.
Fantastic Racism: They loathe sea elves, and the two people are incapable of coexisting without hatred and violence. They loathe tritons only slightly less.
Fish People: Sahuagin resemble humanoid fish, with long tails, fins and webbed hands and feet. They're not fully amphibious like the kuo-toa, but unlike the locathah can survive outside the water for a couple of hours.
Human Sacrifice: Sahuagin priestesses regularly sacrifice humanoids to their god Sekolah, drawing said sacrifices from prisoners of war, slaves, and even their own hatchlings.
Large and in Charge: Sahuagin barons tower over their underlings (and most other humanoids, for that matter).
Light 'em Up: Sahuagin deep divers have anglerfish-like lures growing out of their heads. The magical light produced by these lures can put creatures into a hypnotic stupor.
Making a Splash: Sahuagin wave shapers, true to their name, are mages which focus on manipulating water. In combat they can whip up destructive whirlpools.
Mutants: Most sahuagin mutants are simply born with extra arms, but if a sahuagin settlement is close to some sea elves, there is a rare chance for a sahuagin to be born that looks indistinguishable from a sea elf. These malenti are used as spies and infiltrators by their sahuagin kin, and their birth typically heralds a new wave of bloodshed between the two races, even if their existence hints at a deeper connection that neither wants to acknowledge.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Some sahuagins are born mutants, with an extra set of arms. Such individuals often rise to power as a community's barons and baronesses.
Threatening Shark: Sahuagin are closely associated with sharks. Their god, Sekolah, is a ravenous and oversized great white shark. The sahuagin themselves can communicate telepathically with sharks and will fly into a vicious frenzy at the smell of blood.

Shell Shark

Classification: Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Sharks which have been modified through sahuagin magic, making them tougher and more dangerous.

Beast of Battle: Shell sharks are chosen by priestesses of Sekolah to serve as protectors and messengers.
Heavily Armored Mook: A shell shark is covered in magically affixed plates of coral, giving it an Armor Class on par with a suit of plate.

Salamander

Classification: Outsider (3E), Elemental Humanoid (4E), Elemental (5E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E, 4E), 5 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (1E-2E), Evil (3E-4E), Neutral Evil (5E)

Serpentine beings native to the Elemental Plane of Fire, usually found in the service of stronger beings.

Bizarre Alien Biology: Salamanders don't need to eat, but still produce waste... for some reason. This waste comes out through the salamander's spikes as a liquid that immediately combusts, creating the salamander's fiery aura.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Salamanders do not need to eat, they reproduce asexually, and they are not hurt by any natural phenomena on the elemental plane of fire. With no hunger, sex drive or need for shelter, they instead turn to religion to give life meaning, but Efreet and nobles stop them from worshipping gods. Instead, salamanders turn to fire as their god, and their entire society is built around it. Metal bends to fire but does not break, and gems reflect the beauty of fire, so salamanders prize both highly, but wood, liquid and anything else that is consumed or evaporated by fire is discarded as worthless.
Fantastic Racism: Salamanders hate Azer, because they feel that if the azer had just stayed enslaved to the efreet, then salamanders wouldn't have been enslaved. They apparently haven't considered that the efreet is the root cause of this problem, which the efreet delight in.
Fiery Salamander: Fiery humanoids from the plane of elemental fire, which prefer to live in sweltering temperatures and can create and control fire themselves.
Immune to Fire: Salamanders, as beings of elemental flame, cannot themselves be harmed by fire.
No-Sell: Inverted. Salamander nobles can cast a unique version of Dispell Magic that dispells fire immunity on creatures not native to the elemental planes.
Playing with Fire: Salamanders are creatures of the Elemental Plane of Fire, and by nature can create fireballs and walls of fire, heat themselves enough to burn other beings, and summon fire elementals.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: As salamanders naturally generate intense heat from their bodies, some summoners bind them to forges and ovens to use as endless heat sources.
Slave Race: The efreet enslaved the salamanders in the distant past, to make up for their failure to bind the azers in the same way. Most modern salamanders serve the efreet as slave laborers and soldiers, and the efreet despise the idea of salamanders serving any other master, including gods.
Snake People: They have demonic humanoid torsos and heads mounted on long, serpentine bodies.
Stronger with Age: Salamander Nobles continue growing for their entire lives, and never die by natural means. This means that a truly ancient noble can be the size of a mountain, with power to match.

Frost Salamander

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Elemental (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 9 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E-3E), Unaligned (5E)

Blue-scaled creatures native to the Paralemental Plane of Ice, but also found in the colder reaches of mortal worlds.

Blue Means Cold: Unlike their red-and-orange coloration of common salamanders, frost salamanders have bright blue scales.
Breath Weapon: The frost salamander's breath exhales chill wind in a sixty-foot cone.
Fantastic Racism: True salamanders and frost salamanders hate each other, and will fight to the death when they meet. It's not especially clear why this is, although there's speculation that this is a result of their opposing elemental natures or of a really bad first meeting.
An Ice Person: Frost salamanders can exhale chilling wind, and produce a freezing aura around themselves.
Non-Indicative Name: In-universe. True and frost salamanders aren't actually related to one another in any meaningful sense, but share a name because early explorers named the icy kind after the fiery one based on some superficial similarities.
Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: They resemble reptiles with six legs.

Salt Mummy

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Dessicated, preserved corpses of ancient humanoids who took a great sin to their graves, and had the misfortune to be buried near veins of salt.

Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: While a salt mummy's slam attack dehydrates any living creature to deal extra damage, it's particularly effective against creatures with the Plant type or (Water) subtype.
Mummy: A technical case, in that they're dried-up, well-preserved undead, but they lack a more conventional D&D mummy's signature fear effects or mummy rot disease. As such, they're classified as their own monster rather than a "Mummy, Salt."
Weaksauce Weakness: Ordinary water is just as dangerous to salt mummies as holy water is to undead in general.

Sand Bride

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Fey Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Malevolent desert spirits who weave illusions to lure in victims, then drain their lives away.

Elite Mook: A "sand mother" or "mother of the bride" is an older, more powerful version of a sand bride, better at weaving illusions and able to destroy water once per day. They also prefer to disguise themselves as a matronly figure rather than a young woman, and like to weave their "oasis" traps around natural sinkholes they push victims into.
Level Drain: In 2nd Edition, their slam attacks drain levels from victims, until they're unrecognizable husks that crumble into dust in two days. Remove curse combined with raise dead can revive a husk, but the victim will come back with no memory of their past life without an added wish spell. A wish spell is also the only way to revive someone whose body has crumbled away.
Master of Illusion: Sand brides are talented illusionists, using magic to appear as beautiful women (or more rarely, men) and spells like hallucinatory terrain and seeming to create an illusory oasis, bazaar or sheltering ruin to entice travelers. They usually encourage their victims to have a drink of cool, refreshing "water," then attack while they're choking on the mouthful of sand they just tried to swallow.
Perfect Disguise, Terrible Acting: For all their talent at illusion, sand brides aren't great at interacting with those who fall for their charms. They're bad at making polite conversation, in that "most of their information is out of date or just plain wrong," so those chatting with them are entitled to a saving throw to notice something's off. For this reason, sand brides usually encourage their "guests" to "have a drink, then we'll talk." Another way sand mothers stand out from their kin is their improved conversational skills, feigning concern for the "dear young ones" they're planning to murder.
Retcon: 2nd Edition describes the sand bride as a "negative material plane creature trapped on Athas," while 4th instead casts them as fey beings from the Lands Within the Wind who have become corrupted by the defilement of Athas, driving them to murder.
Sand Blaster: 4th Edition sand brides can make "sand blast" attacks to damage and Knock Back enemies, or a "sand drown" blast that immobilizes them.
Sentient Sands: Their natural form is a roughly humanoid shape of sand with a pair of glowing red eyes. This makes mundane weapons ineffective against them, and sand brides can simply flow around difficult terrain, or disappear into the sands when a battle turns against them. However, sand brides move at half speed across silt, and won't enter other types of terrain.

Sand Howler

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

Tusked reptilian pack hunters that can freeze prey in place with their multi-eyed stare.

Attack Animal: Sand howler pups can be trained as guards or bloodhounds, valued for their keen sense of smell. This and the fear towards wild sand howler packs have led to the beasts being hunted to near-extinction in the Tablelands.
Descriptively-Named Species: They live in deserts, and their packs are known for the terrible howls they use to signal each other while stalking prey. Though the sand howler's 3rd Edition entry notes that "If more of its victims survived, they'd probably rename it for its paralytic gaze and massive jaws."
The Paralyzer: Anything that meets their eight-eyed stare has to save or be paralyzed for several rounds.

Sand Hunter

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

Scaly, wolf-like creatures that share a pack consciousness.

Hive Mind: Their limited empathic links with one another, combined with their ultrasonic communication, results in a "pack mind" that allows a group of sand hunters to move and attack like a single, coordinated being, so that if one is aware of a threat, all of them are, and they get better results when assisting each other in combat.
It Can Think: An individual sand hunter only has an Intelligence score of 3, and is little more than a maddened animal that won't survive long. But a pack's collective Intelligence score is 12, making them smarter than the average humanoid and more than sapient enough to have an alignment. This allows them to have a good relationship with the asherati, who refer to sand hunters as the "spirit of the sands." However, they can only communicate with other creatures empathically rather than through spoken words or telepathy.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Sand hunters have canine bodies but scaly flesh and snake-like heads, making them look unnervingly like the nightstalkers of Fallout: New Vegas.
Super-Scream: By lowering the frequency of their communicative sounds, a group of sand hunters can produce a sonic howl that may stun other creatures.

Sanguineous Drinker

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These near-skeletal undead have torsos filled with dripping organs and viscera, and claws that can drain the blood of their victims.

Life Drain: Their claws are hollow and drain blood, dealing Constitution damage that heals the sanguineous drinker.
Paint the Town Red: Sanguineous drinkers like to decorate their lairs by coating the surfaces with blood, which they'll come back and consume if their Horror Hunger hits and there aren't any victims available.
Slippery Skid: They can spray blood from the organs in their torso to replicate the effects of a grease spell, but doing so deals a bit of damage to the sanguinenous drinker.

Saqualminoi

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Giant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Hulking mountain-dwelling humanoids covered in fur, thought to be a distant cousin to ogres.

Barbarian Tribe: Saqualminoi are sapient beings intelligent enough to learn Common and other languages, but for the most part exist as loose communities of families who hunt mountain sheep or goats, only venturing out of the highlands when game is scarce. However, over the past few decades, agents of Hiddukel have convinced a younger generation of saqualminoi to raid humanoid villages for food and metal items.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: They're the Krynnish equivalent to yetis, primitive humanoids standing twice the height of a man, covered in shaggy white fur. Saqualminoi are sometimes known as "snow demons" for their habit of appearing in the lowlands in search of food, often during the fierce winter storms that drive away their normal game. Not helping their reputation is some young, curious saqualminoi's habit of abducting humanoids for study, which can lead to the abductee's death while trying to escape captivity.
No-Sell: They're so acclimated to cold that they're immune to damage from it, but are consequently Weak to Fire in 3rd Edition. Their broad feet also let them cross snow and ice without issue.
Primitive Clubs: Some saqualminoi wield bone or wooden clubs in combat, but others are content to wade into the fray with their bare fists. "Subtlety is not a characteristic of the saqualaminoi. They are strong, and they know it."

Sarkrith

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (thane), 13 (spelleater) (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

A race of nine-foot-tall, subterranean humanoids who despise magic and have the innate ability to combat it.

Adaptive Ability: Anytime a sarkrith thane takes energy damage from a spell or effect, they gain resistance to that form of energy for the next 24 hours.
Anti-Magical Faction: Sarkriths are cold-bloodedly logical creatures who hate magic's unpredictability — "To the sarkrith, peace means control, and magic in the hands of anyone is a symbol that the sarkrith do not have control." They'd love to destroy the magic-wielding races, but the sarkrith aren't stupid and know they don't yet have the numbers for such a campaign.
Dispel Magic: Sarkrith spelleaters can generate dispelling rays that act like a targeted greater dispel magic effect. Meanwhile, sarkrith thanes can generate an antimagic field once per day.
Feed It with Fire: A sarkrith spelleater heals damage equal to the level of any spell that fails to overcome their spell resistance.
Language Equals Thought: Sarkrith thanes "understand nothing but orders," and always use imperative language when interacting with those less power, while speaking only of obedience when dealing with spelleaters. For their part, spelleaters have difficulty grasping the concept of an exchange of equals, which makes it next to impossible to negotiate with them.
Lizard Folk: They look like Large saurian humanoids, though unlike basic lizardfolk they're advanced enough to make use of masterwork (but never enchanted) metal equipment. Oddly enough, sarkriths don't have the actual "reptilian" subtype, but are specified as counting as a "scalykind" species for the purposes of certain spells and abilities.
The Nose Knows: Sarkrith have the Scent ability, and can actually counter this trope by using an action to mask their own scent for an hour.

Sarrukh

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 21 (3E), 25 (4E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

An ancient and powerful reptilian race responsible for creating many other scaled folk, but is now in a terminal state of decline.

Bio Manipulation: Their 3rd edition ability "Manipulate Form" lets them touch a non-sarrukh reptilian creature and modify it in practically any way they see fit, including (but not limited to) boosting its ability scores, giving it extra limbs or a radically different body structure, or granting it supernatural powers. These become hereditary changes that might be passed on if the modified creature breeds with even a normal member of its species.
Creating Life: In their home setting, the sarrukh are one of the five "progenitor races," and created the nagas, yuan-ti and lizardfolk through breeding and experiments.
Dying Race: The sarrukh are nearly extinct in the present day, with the few that remain prioritizing their continued survival above all else. This leads them to avoid combat at all costs, surround themselves with scaly bodyguards, and prioritize escaping a fight more than winning it.
Game-Breaker: The sheer open-endedness of the 3e sarrukh's "Manipulate Form" ability lead to the infamous "Pun-Pun" build: a kobold who uses high-level spells like shapechange to transform into a sarrukh, then uses Manipulate Form on their Familiar to grant it Manipulate Form; from there the pair proceed to grant each other the powers of many other monsters and indulge in a sequence of complicated Ability Mixing until they've become More Than Infinite beings which can only be defeated by DM fiat. Later refinements of the build can achieve this as early as 4th level, by combining the Divine Minion template's Animorphism with the Master of Many Forms Prestige Class.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: It's said that the "gleaming red eyes of a sarrukh strike fear in the hearts of all other Scaled Ones."
Make My Monster Grow: They can enlarge other reptilian beings just by touching them.
Maker of Monsters: They created most of the sentient reptilian monsters in the Forgotten Realms by uplifting pre-existing creatures through magic.
No Self-Buffs: The touch of a sarrukh can transform another reptilian being in any way that the sarrukh sees fit, but it has no effect on the sarrukh itself or others of its kind.
Poisonous Person: Their bite attacks carry a nasty poison.
Precursors: The sarrukh were the overlords of some of Toril's oldest civilisations, and once ruled the continent of Faerûn before a variety of factors led to their decline. Thousands of years after the fall of their empires, the sarrukh are all but extinct.
Snake People: An individual sarrukh's body may be either bipedal or snakelike. A snakelike sarrukh has a serpentine body and head, plus two powerful arms. A bipedal sarrukh has a humanoid upper body and limbs with a snake-like lower torso.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Sarrukh can generate a short-ranged fear aura.
Your Magic's No Good Here: They have the power to reshape any "Scaled One" as they see fit just by touching them, but it only works on beings native to Toril.

Satyr

Classification: Fey (3E, 5E), Fey Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E), 7 (4E), 1/2 (5E)
Playable: 2E-5E
Alignment: True Neutral (1E-2E), Chaotic Neutral (3E, 5E), Unaligned (4E)

Horned and hoofed humanoids who live in the wilderness and love to party. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Saurial

Clockwise from top: a saurial hornhead, bladeback, flyer, and finhead (3e)

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

Several distinct species of dinosaur-like humanoids, who live together in a common society.

Achilles' Heel: Saurials' metabolism and reliance upon scent gives them a racial penalty on saving throws against gas-based attacks such as cloudkill.
Hive Caste System: Saurial subraces aren't explicit castes, but all tend to gravitate towards certain roles in a community, due to their physical abilities and psychology.
- Bladebacks are bipedal stegosaurs, and are social creatures who try to understand the motives of others, and often serve as village leaders or advisors. They're slow to anger, but also slow to forgive, and passionate once pushed to aggression.
- Finheads are, Depending on the Artist, anything from hadrosaurids to generic carnosaurus with pronounced fin-crests on their heads. They're bright, skilled with their hands, as well as emotional and prone to seeing things in black and white; they thus serve as soldiers when they aren't doing physical labor.
- Flyers are Small, pterodactyl-like humanoids that are flighty, nervous and irritable, but enjoy gossip. They usually serve their communities as scouts and messengers.
- Hornheads are Large, bipedal ceratopians, contemplative and slow to take action. They prefer intellectual pursuits such as philosophy, wizardry, and alchemy, as well as applied sciences such as engineering and metalworking.
Lizard Folk: Of the "dinosaur-folk" variant. Unlike lizardfolk, saurials are noted to be warm-blooded, but they don't handle cold very well. In 3rd Edition this translates to a penalty on Fortitude saves to endure cold environments and increased subdual damage on a failure, while in their 2nd Edition rules, saurials are in danger of entering a death-like torpor upon prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, which will soon lead to their actual demise unless they're warmed up.
Lost World: The saurials of Faerûn were brought there as slaves by the evil god Moander, who took them from their home Material Plane to an isolated part of the Dalelands known as the Lost Vale. Since the god's defeat, the saurials have settled there, and neighboring communities have heard rumors of strangely-civilized "dragonmen" who live and farm in villages just like humanoids do.
No-Sell: Downplayed; saurials' well-protected earholes give them a bonus on saving throws against sonic effects, though not full immunity.
The Nose Knows: They have the Scent special ability.
Starfish Language: Saurials naturally speak at a higher frequency than most other creatures (other than dragons and fey) can hear. They can hear human speech just fine, though the "deep tongues" sound dull and tired to their ears. Saurials also supplement their spoken words with scents to indicate emotional states — the smell of lemons indicates happiness, baked bread indicates anger, brimstone indicates confusion, violets indicates fear, and so forth. These odors are strong enough that even humans can pick up on them.
Tail Slap: All saurials except flyers can make a natural attack with their tails, though it doesn't do much damage (even for bladebacks, suggesting they lack a proper stegosaur's thagomizer).

Scarecrow

Classification: Fey Animate (4E), Construct (5E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (4E), 1 (5E)
Alignment: True Neutral (2E), Unaligned (4E), Chaotic Evil (5E)

Distinctly spooky constructs created to serve spellcasters such as hags or witches.

Pumpkin Person: Early scarecrows were noted to have carved gourds for heads, which revolve unsettlingly as the construct lurches after enemies.
Scary Scarecrows: Scarecrows are evil constructs that obey their master's command, eager to terrify prey with their sackcloth face and rend victims with razor-sharp claws.
Soul-Powered Engine: A scarecrow is controlled by the bound spirit of a dead evil creature. Sometimes this results in aspects of the spirit's personality resurfacing, but the scarecrow remains focused on serving its creator.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: A scarecrow's mere gaze can paralyze other creatures with fear.
Weak to Fire: As creations of wood and straw, scarecrows are pretty flammable.

Scavver

Brown scavver (5e)

Origin: Spelljammer
Classification: Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1/4 (gray), 4 (brown), 5 (night), 11 (void) (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

One-eyed, shark-like animals that swim through Wildspace, trailing behind larger creatures or starships. The smaller scavvers are content to feed on scraps and organic debris, but the larger breeds are actively predatory.

Poisonous Person: 2nd Edition lets brown scavvers, once per day, burp out some of their stomach poison to attack an adjacent creature that's proving hard to swallow.
Super-Senses: Their 2nd Edition entry states that void scavvers' sense of smell is so acute that they can attack invisible enemies without penalty.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Void scavvers, in their 5th Edition rules, can fire a ray of fear from their baleful red eye.
Swallowed Whole: Brown and larger scavvers are capable of swallowing prey smaller than themselves. Brown scavvers are known for their poisonous gullets that can rapidly subdue prey, while night scavvers in their AD&D rules have a habit of transferring unruly food to their mouths for more chewing before swallowing them again.
Threatening Shark: They're space sharks, more or less. Gray scavvers are Medium-sized scavengers that travel in packs, but have no stomach for resistance. Brown scavvers are Large, but mainly dangerous for their poisonous gullets, and similarly retreat from prey that poses a challenge, at least for a time. But the Huge night scavvers are willing to attack sailors on their deck, with the void scavvers are known to strip a vessel clean of edible prey.

Scile

Origin: Planescape
Alignment: True Neutral (standard scile) or Chaotic Evil (Ravagers of Color)

Also known as incandescents, these glowing motes of light inhabit the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance, and will drain the color of any visitors they come across.

Abstract Eater: The scile eat colors, and while their home plane provides enough for them to thrive, they'll eagerly swarm visitors for a change in "flavor." A cloud of standard scile can render a creature transparent in one to four rounds, while the so-called "Ravagers of Color" are more picky, and will consume specific colors from creatures, leading to various side-effects.
Blessed with Suck: Someone rendered transparent by the scile cannot be seen, but unlike with the invisibility spell, the victim can't see themself either, or any of the equipment they were carrying. As a result of not being able to see where they are or what they're doing, a transparent creature takes a minor penalty to all dice rolls involving physical action, and has a chance to botch the somatic components of spells. Fortunately, a remove curse spell or use of some dust of appearance cures the effect; alternatively, paint can be used.
Emotion Eater: Somehow, the Ravagers of Color consuming specific shades from their victims can affect their mental state. Those who lose the color blue also lose their serenity, and have a chance to fly into a rage each day. Those who lose their red/passion become so listless they have to succeed at a saving throw just to attempt an action. Those who lose their yellow/hope fall into a depression and have a penalty on all dice rolls. Like with regular sciles, remove curse or dust of appearance can curee these effects, or a victim can let normal sciles consume the rest of their colors, exchanging the lost emotion for total transparency.
No-Sell: The scile are immune to any magic that affects physical matter, and can only be hit with magical weapons. But they'll retreat from a darkness spell.
Non-Health Damage: If the Ravagers of Color eat someone's violet or orange, it translates into lost Intelligence and vitality/Strength, respectively.
Telepathy: The scile are in fact intelligent, and communicate with one another via telepathy.
Truth Serum: Those who have their color green consumed by the Ravagers of Color also lose their ability to keep secrets, so they not only become unable to lie, they constantly divulge information to everyone around them.

Scrapper

5e
Created by Jake F.

Classification: Construct (5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Large, sparking automatons often found in scrapyards.

Combat Tentacles: They can lash at foes with a tangle of wires, dealing electricity damage and potentially grappling and reeling them in.
Eye Beams: Scrappers can fire magical beams from one of their eyes, dealing force damage.
Metal Muncher: Theirs is a diet of scrap metal.
No-Sell: Thanks to lead shielding in their heads, scrappers are immune to psychic damage.
The Spiny: Scrappers' bodies are electrified, dealing a nasty shock to adjacent attackers.

Screaming Devilkin

Classification: Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Small, winged creatures that attack anything they see, shrieking all the while.

Beware My Stinger Tail: In combat, they lash at foes with their barbed tails.
Cruel Mercy: Their 5E lore explains that screaming devilkin rarely kill their victims, instead they "prefer to leave their victims badly injured and shorn of all hope." After incapacitating their victims, the fey will steal weapons, supplies, and anything else the targets need to survive, dooming them to a slow demise. Afterward, the screaming devilkin will taunt their victims, flying in sight of them while carrying all the items they stole, and their jeering often attracts other monsters who have learned that an easy meal is nearby.
The Heartless: 5th Edition casts screaming devilkin as creatures spawned when something in the Feywild is overcome by panic to the point of screaming, the sound of which might get caught in a rocky outcropping and reverberate until a pack of screaming devilkin burst from the stone. As such, these monsters exist to spread such panic, shrieking at other creatures until they succumb to sensory overload.
Nonindicative Name: While the "screaming" part is quite accurate, these creatures are unrelated to baatezu, and are in fact classified as Fey in 5th Edition.
Super-Scream: They scream constantly in combat, making conversation (and spellcasting) impossible in 1st Edition, or potentially incapacitating other creatures in 5th Edition.
Villain Team-Up: 5th Edition asserts that screaming devilkin are drawn to Evil Overlords, Necromancers and similar villains, and might ally with them for the opportunity to spread terror and misery. "These creatures serve as horrid mascots of a sort, capering about their new master and following orders to torment those who displease their leader with glee."

Scuttling Serpentmaw

Origin: Critical Role
Classification: Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Small crablike monsters that move across the ocean floor, tearing at prey with their claws and extra mouth.

Giant Enemy Crab: They're larger than the average crab, and aberrant monsters with jagged carapaces and a freakishly long extra mouth growing out of their backs.
Too Many Mouths: A scuttling serpentmaw has an extra maw concealed on the back of its shell.
Zerg Rush: They're more dangerous in mobs, as their "Pack Tactics" rule gives scuttling serpentmaws advantage on attack rolls when allies are attacking the same target.

Scyllan

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 13 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

These tentacled scions of the infamous Scylla can be found in the frozen oceans of Stygia, as well as more hospitable waters on the Material Plane.

Combat Tentacles: Scyllans have four tentacle attacks, which can also grapple and constrict victims.
Making a Splash: They can cast control water once per hour, lowering or raising the water level around them.
Our Mermaids Are Different: Though their monster entry art is ambiguous, a sketch of a scyllan's full body at the start of the chapter reveals that they fit the "squidfolk" variant, with a humanoid head and torso over a tentacled lower body.
Sea Monster: They exist as such, lurking around rocks and reefs to snatch sailors from passing ships, stuffing their maws with as many victims as possible.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: Scyllans can produce a terrible wailing by blowing air through the comb-like growths on their heads, a sound that can cause creatures that fail their saving throws to become panicked or shaken.
Swallowed Whole: These Huge monsters are capable of swallowing anything smaller than them, dealing constant crushing and acid damage until the victim cuts their way out.

Sea Drake

Classification: Dragon (3E)
Challenge Rating: 15 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Serpentine creatures who live in the oceans, sea drakes demand tribute from any ship passing through their waters, but in return, keep their territories meticulously free of monsters and pirates.

Healing Factor: Sea drakes automatically regain health and regenerate body parts while in the water.
Sea Serpents: They're enormous, limbless, wingless, aquatic dragons that dominate vast areas of the sea and use their strength to extort passing ships for vast sums of treasure, destroying any that fail to comply. In battle, they prefer to wrap their coils around ships to either crush them or drag them into the depths. Sea drakes are distinct from the sea serpents listed below for lacking breath weapons or age categories.
Smoke Out: The underwater variant; sea drakes can release a cloud of ink that replicates a darkness spell, but only in water.
Swallowed Whole: Sea drakes can swallow any creature smaller than themselves if they can get their jaws around it. This forces the victim out of combat as it tries not to drown in the serpent's gastric acids, but if it can avoid this it's free to attack the sea drake's insides or attempt to climb out of its mouth.
Tail Slap: When fighting smaller ships, sea drakes prefer to smash them to splinters by beating them with their tail flukes.

Sea Kin

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

An aquatic human subrace who dwells in coastal shoals and coral reefs, delighting in the beauty of the ocean.

Apparently Human Merfolk: Sea kin look human at a glance, though their skin is shiny and slippery from an oil that helps keep them warm and move through water, their hands and feet are longer and webbed, their eyes are black and have an extra transparent eyelid, their hair is dark or a metallic color, and their mouths are oversized and full of sharp fangs meant for tearing rather than chewing food. They can't actually breathe water, though sea kin can hold their breath for long periods, and while they're amphibious, sea kin have to immerse themselves in water at least once a week, or else they have to start making saving throws each day to avoid Constitution damage.
Arch-Enemy: While sea kin get along with most aquatic races (enough so that their Common is peppered with Elven phrases in the sea elf dialect), they're bitter enemies with the sahuagin, who prey upon any sea kin who strays too far from their shoals.
The Beastmaster: They take on seals, walruses and the like as pets and companions, and take a dim view of humans hunting such creatures unless no other food is available.
Constantly Curious: Though a generally shy race, sea kin also have an intense curiosity about new people and experiences, leading them to become adventurers or take an interest in the crafts of other races, especially if said items are both practical and aesthetically-pleasing.
Human Subspecies: They have the human subtype, so anything that affects a "pure" human affects them too. Sea kin enjoy the company of their human cousins, and some coastal settlements have mixed populations of humans and sea kin who have lived together in harmony for generations.
Underwater City: Downplayed; sea kin dwellings are built along coastal cliffs and are designed to partially submerge at high tide, so it's not uncommon for water to cover the floors of structures.

Sea Lion

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_sea_cat_3e.png

^2e

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E), 5 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Also known as sea cats, these aquatic predators blend the forms of felines and cetaceans, and aggressively hunt anything that enters their pride's territory.

Art Evolution: In 1st and 2nd edition, they're depicted as very chimeric beings with a fully fishlike tails and fully leonine front, meeting at a sharp line. In and after 3rd, their body parts' designs are more smoothly integrated into each other, they're green, and their feline parts lack and a mane and are less specifically leonine.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: They attack other creatures on sight, either considering them prey or a rival to be driven off, and simply won't back down even against creatures that outsize them, fighting to the death.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Sea cats have the head and forelimbs of a lion, and the body of a small cetacean.
Pun-Based Creature: Their original incarnations were quite literally sea-lions, with maned, furred feline fronts and the back ends of fish, mermaid-style.

Sea Serpent

Classification: Dragon (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (young), 14 (ancient) (5E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Sinuous draconic creatures adapted to the sea, possessing breath weapons and growing stronger with age, but lacking a true dragon's frightful presence. Though intelligent, they are fiercely territorial and attack passing ships as sources of both food and treasure.

Art Evolution: The sea serpents of 3rd Edition resemble enormous sea snakes with a draconic head and clawed hands on varioius parts of their bodies. Their 5th Edition counterparts resemble long-bodied fish with multiple fins, including a large dorsal one, and no articulated limbs.
Dragon Hoard: Rather than lairing with their hoards, sea serpents bury their treasure in undersea caves or coral reefs and visit it between hunts.
Fantastic Racism: They're clearly related to true dragons, but neither group is willing to comment on their common heritage, and anytime a sea serpent and coast-dwelling dragon's territory overlaps, the result is a vicious and bloody battle.
An Ice Person: In 5th Edition, sea serpents can exhale cones of supernaturally cold air.
Sea Serpents: Sea serpents are long and sinuous dragons who dwell in the oceans, resemble enormous sea snakes with a draconic head and fins, and often attack ships to claim their treasures.
Tail Slap: In 5th Edition, as sea serpents lack limbs, lashing blows of their powerful tails serve as one of their primary combat tools.

Crested Sea Serpent

Challenge Rating: 3-24 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

The most intelligent of the sea serpent breeds, crested sea serpents are also the most aggressive, using their power and abilities to dominate other sea creatures. Older crested sea serpents will set themselves up as the rulers of undersea kingdoms, making their lairs in palaces on the ocean floor.

Charm Person: They learn various enchantment spells like charm person and charm monster.
Compelling Voice: Crested sea serpents of any age can use hypnotism at will, enrapturing other creatures with a hypnotic song enhanced by the tubes and resonating chambers in their bony frills.
Lured into a Trap: Unusually for sea serpents, the crested breed prefers this to direct combat, such as by using suggestion on a ship's helmsman to steer it into submerged rocks.
Mood-Swinger: Crested sea serpents are capricious overlords, at one moment a Bad Boss asking for more than their minions are capable of delivering, then acting as a Benevolent Boss handsomely rewarding loyal servants.
Super-Scream: The crested sea serpent's breath weapon is a line of sonic energy.

Lantern Sea Serpent

Challenge Rating: 4-25 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

The mightiest of the sea serpent breeds, lantern sea serpents are obsessed with power and exerting their dominion over other creatures, whether their lesser kin or passing ships. They lurk in ancient temple complexes on the ocean floor, with architecture unlike anything seen on the surface.

Crafted from Animals: A lantern sea serpent's outer flesh is translucent but tough, and can be worked into armor just like a true dragon's hide. Some humanoid nobles are therefore willing to pay handsomely for a lantern sea serpent's hide, as much as ten times the normal amount for dragonhide armor.
Hidden Agenda Villain: The exact motives and desires of lantern sea serpents are unknown to the surface world. Some sages speculate that they seek some kind of aquatic apocalypse, but there's little evidence that supports this opinion.
Luring in Prey: They sport a glowing lure on a stalk protruding from their heads, which implicitly helps them with their color spray and hypnotic pattern spell-like abilities.
Monster Lord: Lantern sea serpents are the undisputed overlords of all sea serpents, and occasionally summon other sea serpents down to the depths for a moot. What exactly the creatures discuss is another mystery, since none but a sea serpent has survived attending such gatherings.
Shock and Awe: The lantern sea serpent's breath weapon is a line of red lightning.

Spiked Sea Serpent

Challenge Rating: 2-23 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

The weakest of the sea serpent breeds is also the most territorial, engaging any perceived rivals in furious, thrashing combat. Spiked sea serpents don't make proper lairs, and at most bury themselves in the mud of the ocean floor to sleep.

Damage Over Time: As they age, spiked sea serpents are able to deal terrible bleeding wounds with their constriction attacks.
Driven to Madness: The spikes of old spiked sea serpents are laced with a toxin that incites madness.
May–December Romance: Spiked sea serpents' extreme territoriality extends to their own subspecies, so the only suitors they'll tolerate are those that are much younger and weaker than them. As such, any mated pair of spiked sea serpents will consist of two creatures at least three age categories apart from one another.
Spike Shooter: Spiked sea serpents are covered in vicious barbs, which they launch at enemies before closing the distance to make a constriction attack.
Spikes of Villainy: They're so spiky that they deal constriction damage disproportionate to their actual age category, which is part bludgeoning, part piercing damage. It's noted that they lose and regrow spines constantly as their spikes are torn off in combat.

Sea Spawn

Origin: Ravenloft
Classification: Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Humanoids who were lost at sea, only to be claimed by sea hags, storm giants, dragon turtles, morkoths, or some other aquatic power. Whether offered a terrible bargain or cursed by their creators, these sea spawn are transformed both physically and mentally into amphibious minions.

Combat Tentacles: Some sea spawn have tentacles which they can use to bludgeon and grapple their foes.
Fish People: They have one or more traits from undersea creatures — a shark's jaws, sea urchin's spines, octopus tentacles — which can have applications in combat. They're faster in the water than on land, and though amphibious, need to spend at least one minute each day submerged in seawater to avoid suffocation.
Happiness in Slavery: Elminster implies as such.
Elminster: They are transformed by the sea and enslaved by powers of the deeps. And the transformation is more than mere fins and tentacles, they come to love their slavery. Poor souls.
Poisonous Person: Some sea spawn have venomous quills like a pufferfish, and can use them to prick nearby creatures.
Retcon: The sea spawn's 2nd Edition incarnation is of a tiny, lamprey-like Puppeteer Parasite that burrows into the skulls of sleeping or paralyzed humanoids in coastal communities, then wraps around their host's brain to control it and help their brethren take over the town. On rare occasions, one of these sea spawn minions might escape back into the sea to evolve into a sea spawn master that greatly resembles the look of the 5E sea spawn, coordinating the next infiltration.
Was Once a Man: They're the product of a magical ritual widely known by evil sea creatures.

Seawolf

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Murderous shapeshifters who can infiltrate coastal towns or ship crews in human guise, attack landbound foes in a wolf-human hybrid form, or hunt in the water as a wolf-headed seal.

Arch-Enemy: They hate selkies as allies of humanity, and attack them on sight.
Curse: Anyone bitten by a seawolf has to save or be cursed to transform into one during the next new moon, their personality similarly changing to become savage and twisted. Should a seawolf and a human produce offspring, the results are good swimmers who feel strangely drawn to the sea, but only a quarter of them develop the seawolf curse at adolescence.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: Seawolves can shift between human, bestial and hybrid forms, though unlike proper D&D lycanthropes, they don't revert to a "true" form when slain, have no resistance to mundane weapons, and involuntary transformations are triggered by the new moon, not the full moon. As such, while AD&D classifies seawolves as lycanthropes, 3rd Edition does not.
Parental Abandonment: Despite their pack-based society, seawolves are poor parents, abandoning their cubs, who often drown attempting to keep up. Only one-in-twenty seawolf youngsters survive to reach adulthood.
Playing Possum: If encountered sleeping in human form during the daytime, a pack of seawolves might be mistaken for shipwreck victims on a beach, or a group of drowned bodies if floating out at sea. The shapeshifters are happy to play along with this misconception to gain a chance to ambush someone.

Secret of Vecna

Classification: Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Former disciples of Vecna who have been punished by their god, leaving them broken, insane shells of what they were.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: An enigma of Vecna can make a "Memory Ripper" attack, a ranged psychic assault that deals damage and prevents its target from using encounter powers until they make a save, at which point they're dazed — having those memories torn out of the victim's mind is agonizing, and having them suddenly return is shocking.
Perception Filter: The most powerful secrets of Vecna can blast nearby foes with psychic damage that leaves victims unable to perceive the creature until they make a saving throw.
Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: Spell howlers of Vecna can use a "Word of Madness" to force one opponent to move and attack another.
Talkative Loon: Spell howlers in particular constantly whisper or gibber broken fragments of Vecna's secrets to themselves. While this is potentially a security risk, and Vecna's enemies have tried to capture the god's minions and try to reconstruct their minds in order to learn Vecna's secrets, to date none have succeeded. If a ritual to rebuild the shattered mind of a secret of Vecna exists, it is closely guarded by the god's cult.
Turns Red: When bloodied, a secret of Vecna's skin sloughs off and its hands transform into twisted claws, which it uses to tear off its own face. While the shock of witnessing this can cause enemies to recoil for a moment, this change does restrict the secret of Vecna to making clawed melee attacks.
You Have Failed Me: Being reduced to a secret of Vecna is a punishment reserved for the Maimed God's cultists who tried to sell the cult's secrets, withheld information from their deity, read the wrong forbidden tome, or allowed nonbelievers to abscond with the cult's knowledge. The result leaves the offender a wreck capable only of combat and following its superiors' orders.

Selkie

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

Shapechangers who can transition between humanoid and seal form, and feel a deep curiosity for land-dwellers that often ends in tragedy.

Can't Hold His Liquor: AD&D notes that selkies are "particularly susceptible to fine wine," since after all you don't find many vinyards in the ocean.
One-Gender Race: Averted, despite their origin in myths about "seal wives" — selkie communities contain both males and females, though the latter outnumber the former due to the males serving as hunter/gatherers and consequently being exposed to more danger.
Selkies and Wereseals: They follow the source myth more or less, though their shapeshifting doesn't rely on shedding or donning their seal skins, preventing Shapeshifter Mode Lock.
Shapeshifting Lover: Selkies are known for falling in love with humanoids and living happily among them for a time, until the selkie's longing for the ocean leads them to abandon their family, including any web-footed children.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Selkies' is limited, as they can only transition between forms on "in-between places" such as the beach (in 3rd Edition), or can only take human form for a week out of each month (in 2nd Edition).

Senmurv

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Good

Large blends of wolf and avian, who are stalwart champions of good.

Decomposite Character: "Simurgh" and "senmurv" are alternate spellings for the same creature, a magical peacock-like being whose head is sometimes depicted as human-like, and other times wolf-like. The 2nd Edition simurgh uses the human-headed design, but then the 3rd Edition Fiend Folio introduced a wolf-headed senmurv with a very different powerset, only for Dragon #334 to bring back the original simurgh two years later.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: They prefer to use their Flyby Attack feat to strafe foes a few times before committing to melee.
Holy Hand Grenade: Senmurvs can make a "smite evil" attack once per day.
Sapient Steed: Beyond scouting for and protecting good humanoids, senmurvs are willing to carry a rider, though they can only carry 200 pounds, and said rider will have to do without a saddle.
Supernatural Sensitivity: Senmurvs can detect good and evil at will, which they use to screen who they assist. If someone does manage to deceive a helpful senmurv, it'll become enraged.

Sepulchral Thief

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: As base creature +2 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil or Neutral Evil

Greedy skulkers who continue their larcenous ways even in death.

Life Drain: They heal themselves a portion of the damage they deal to others.
Perception Filter: Sepulchral thieves are surrounded by an obscuring aura of negative energy that affects the minds and senses of other creatures, causing them to be blinded and deafened, but only affecting creatures with less than half the Hit Dice of the undead.
Phantom Thief: On the one hand, sepulchral thieves have supernatural abilities that enable them to pull off spectacular heists. On the other hand, these undead have no class or morality — their main interest is in causing suffering with their thievery, leading them to prioritize items with great personal as well as monetary value. So a masterwork painting from a lord's manor is just as viable a target as a starving family's last stash of coins, a holy icon that could end a war between nations, or the cure for a plague.
Shadow Walker: They can jump between shadows as per the dimension door spell, though only up to 30 feet each day.
Soul Jar: If slain, a sepulchral thief's spirit inhabits the most valuable item on its corpse, until the undead reappears no more than 10 days after its apparent demise. Destroying said item or using magic like dispel evil or hallow will prevent the thief from returning.
Stealth Expert: Sepulchral thieves were likely quite sneaky in life, and in death gain the "Hide in Plain Sight" ability.
Unfinished Business: Subverted; sepulchral thieves arise when an evil and hateful soul dies in the midst of planning or executing their greatest heist, so that their anger and frustration causes them to rise from their grave for another chance at their prize. But once they come back, sepulchral thieves are free to continue their crime spree even after they achieve their previous goal.

Serpentir

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

These snake-like undead are two skeletal upper bodies sharing the same elongated spine, creeping along on ribs instead of limbs.

A Head at Each End: This allows serpentirs to take two creatures' worth of actions on its turn.
The Empath: A predatory example. They can sense emotions, which translates into a form of blindsense that can only detect living creatures.
Horror Hunger: Serpentirs constantly hunger for flesh, but can only watch as everything they "eat" falls through their empty ribcages, driving them to murderous madness.
Killer Bear Hug: Their signature attack is to grapple a victim and pull them in close, so that their churning ribs can grind them to pieces. Once a victim has been grabbed like this, the serpentir can continue moving and acting normally while its ribs do their work.

Shadar-Kai

Classification: Fey (3E), Shadow Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 6 (4E), 7 (5E)
Playable: 4E-5E
Alignment: Neutral Evil (3E), Unaligned (4E), True Neutral (5E)

A race of humanoids innately bound to the Shadowfell. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Shade

Classification: Outsider (3E), Shadow Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Playable: 3E-4E
Alignment: Any nongood (2E-3E), Any (4E)

Humanoids who have traded a portion of their soul away for power over shadow.

Casting a Shadow: Downplayed by 3E shades, who can decrease the brightness of light sources within 100 feet of them, without actually creating a darkness effect.
Doppelgänger Spin: 2E and 3E shades can use a shadow image spell-like ability that behaves much like the mirror image spell. 4E shades instead have a "shadow monsters" power that summons creatures that can deal actual damage.
Evil-Detecting Dog: Inverted in 2nd Edition, in which shades not only do not provoke any sort of hostile reaction from animals, unintelligent animals seem to ignore them altogether, as if perceiving them as shadows rather than living beings.
Greed: 4th Edition casts shades as "ambitious, ruthless and paraoid." Shades are assumed to have undertaken the Trail of Five Darknesses to further their own ambitions or to gain the power to protect something they couldn't bear to lose, and the fact that they were willing to give up part of their soul for such power means that no further sacrifice is too great for them to consider. Even those who become fiercely loyal to and protective toward their True Companions are assumed to be displaying a form of avarice, "treating friends as personal possessions that must be kept safe at all costs."
Healing Factor: 2E and 3E shades gain fast healing in dark conditions.
Humanoid Abomination: Shades' tie to darkness forever separates them from their birth race, making them creatures of shadow in 4th Edition, and full-fledged Outsiders in 3E. This affects their appearance as well, so that their flesh turns pale, gray or inky black, while their eyes are dark grey, purple or dull black.
Immortality Seeker: Plenty of shades undertook the transformation at least in part because of the extended lifespan.
Innate Night Vision: Shades have darkvision at the very least, while depending on the rules they might also be able to see through any sort of darkness effect.
Invisibility: Shades can conceal themselves in shadow, becoming effectively invisible in certain conditions.
Long-Lived: While AD&D posits that shades are effectively immortal, 3rd Edition states that they increase their lifespan tenfold by binding themselves to shadow, while 4th Edition says most shades double their lifespan, but rumors persist of powerful shades who stop aging altogether.
Racial Transformation: Shades are not a natural race — in 2E they are in fact sterile, while in 3E, any children produced by shades are that of their parents' original race. 2E shades used some undefined powerful magic to transform themselves, while the 3E shades detailed in Forgotten Realms material are outstanding members of the city of Shade who are rewarded for their loyalty to the city's High Prince with the power of shadow. 4E shades underwent a ritual known as the Trail of Five Darknesses, risking their very bodies and souls in pursuit of power.
Shadow Walker: One common trait across editions is shades' ability to jump between shadow, either short hops or full-blown teleport effects depending on the ruleset.
The Stoic: The 4E Heroes of Shadow supplement explains that binding the Shadowfell to oneself deadens emotions, so that while shades are still capable of feeling love, hate, etc., they barely express them. "A shade's smirk or frown carries as much weight as a halfling's laughter or an orc's frenzied roar."
Weakened by the Light: Varies by edition. 2nd Edition shades actually take penalties to their vision, hit points and saving throws while in areas without shadow, i.e. bright light and total darkness. 3E shades simply lose all their racial traits in areas of bright light, while 4E shades can use their racial powers regardless of light conditions.

Shadow

Classification: Undead (3E, 5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 1/2 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These sentient shapes of darkness hate the living as much as they despise light.

Intangibility: In older editions, shadows are classified as incorporeal creatures, while 5th Edition gives them the "Amorphous" rule to let them flow through inch-wide gaps without difficulty.
Living Shadow: Shadows are undead that resemble dark exaggerations of humanoid shadows. In 5th edition they are literally shadows which have come to (un)life and separated from their deceased owners.
Non-Health Damage: Shadows have traditionally dealt Strength damage with their touch attacks, and surprisingly, 5th Edition continued this trend despite the edition mostly phasing out such abilities. This makes shadows infamously much more dangerous than their Challenge Rating would indicate, because 1) the rarity of stat-damaging attacks in 5th edition means there are few defenses against it, 2) Strength is many classes' Dump Stat, and 3) if a character's Strength hits zero, they succumb to Stat Death.
The Virus: In 5th Edition, anyone slain by one of these creatures will have their own shadow darken and eventually break free. If the victim is then returned to life, they will cast no shadow until the monster they spawned is destroyed.
Weakened by the Light: In 5th edition, shadows suffer various penalties from being in direct sunlight.

Shadow Asp

Origin: Ravenloft
Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Dark serpents thought to have originated on the Plane of Shadow, but have found a use as tomb guardians.

Intangibility: Shadow asps can become incorporeal for up to an hour each day, and often ambush intruders after emerging from the walls, floor or ceiling.
MacGuffin Guardian: The first known use of shadow asps as guardians was by the priesthood of Har'Akir, who use them to protect pharaohs' tombs from grave robbers.
Spawn Broodling: A shadow asp's poison can turn its victim into an undead shadow, either after a mere five rounds (in 2nd Edition), or if the victim succumbs to the poison's Strength damage (in 3rd Edition). The shadows created by the poison aren't considered controlled, but are bound to the area they died, unable to travel more than 100 feet from where they were spawned, effectively making them another layer of defense.

Shadow Mastiff

Classification: Outsider (3E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E), 2 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Great hounds from the Plane of Shadow, making them most dangerous in darkness.

Invisibility: Shadow mastiffs can blend in with patches of shadow, giving them the effect of total concealment (in 3rd Edition) or proper invisibility (in 5th Edition).
See the Invisible: Their keen senses allow them to see normally-invisible things on the Ethereal Plane.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: The howling of their pack alphas can frighten other creatures, and is often the signal for the rest of the pack to attack. In 3rd Edition, all shadow mastiffs could use this ability, but their baying only affected non-evil creatures.
Weakened by the Light: Being creatures of the Shadowfell, shadow mastiffs can tolerate bright light, but not sunlight.

Shadow of the Void / Shape of Fire

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_shadow_of_the_void_3e.jpg

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 26 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Manifestations of cold malevolence and white-hot malice, the tortured forms of spirits condemned to an eternity of frost and fire.

Cold Flames: Shadows of the void are comprised of blackfire, cold black flames that, with a mere touch, deal permanent Constitution damage to victims for several rounds, or until they're reduced to icy fragments.
An Ice Person: Shadows of the void have the cold subtype, can cast Otiluke's freezing sphere three times per day, and are so cold that everything within 10 feet of them takes damage.
Playing with Fire: Shapes of fire have the fire subtype, and can cast fire storm and incendiary cloud three times per day.
Spawn Broodling: Anything slain by these undead will arise as a winterwight or lavawight in a few rounds.
Technicolor Fire: Shapes of fire are comprised of blazefire, white flames that, with a mere touch, deal Maximum HP Reduction to victims for several rounds, or until they're reduced to blackened ash.
Wreathed in Flames: Shapes of fire appear as 10-foot-tall humanoids forever engulfed in white lambent flames, and are hot enough to burn other creatures within 10 feet of them.

Lavawight / Winterwight

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

Winterwight (3e)

Challenge Rating: 23 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Undead that appear to be enfulfed in "flesh" of molten rock or frigid ice, and whose touch carries the same blackfire or blazefire as their progenitors.

Elemental Armor: The magma or ice covering these wights' bodies not only generate auras of heat or cold that damage nearby foes, they give these undead the coveted Damage Reduction 10/— that nothing can bypass.
Flaming Hair: Lavawights' bare skulls are surrounded by a corona of white flame, while winterwights' burn with black, chilling fire.
An Ice Person: Winterwights can cast cone of cold, sleet storm and wall of ice at will.
Playing with Fire: Lavawights can use flame arrow, fireball and wall of fire at will.
Retcon: As per their AD&D entry, winter-wights are the creations of Acererak, the infamous lich behind the Tomb of Horrors, and while their 3rd Edition entry mentions their history as the creation of "a legendary demilich," they can also be routinely spawned by a shadow of the void.
Wolverine Claws: These undead's clawed hands are capable of latching onto and rending opponents for extra damage.

Shadow Wight

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Minions of the primordial overgod Chaos, whose attacks can erase their victims from existence.

Achilles' Heel: Shadow wights are tough to kill without magic weapons, but warriors (or weapons) under a bless effect automatically deal critical hits to them, Holy Water is doubly effective against these undead, a raise dead spell frees the shadow wight's once-living soul and thus affects the undead as a slay living spell, and finally a cleric in good graces with their deity can use a medallion of faith to deal damage to a shadow wight based on the cleric's level, with the caveat that the medallion will be destroyed in the process.
Deader than Dead: Anything who suffers Stat Death from a shadow wight's Charisma-damaging attacks is "nullified" — they vanish, leaving behind Empty Piles of Clothing, cannot be resurrected even by a wish spell, and those who knew the victim lose all memory of them.
Enemy to All Living Things: Animals will panic and run away rather than stay close to a shadow wight.
An Ice Person: Frost wights are a frigid variant of shadow wight composed of ice, and deal less Charisma damage but additional cold damage with their attacks.
Intangibility: They're incorporeal undead.
Non-Health Damage: They deal hefty amounts of Charisma damage with their incorporeal touch attacks. Those who aren't subject to oblivion from these attacks will often lose memories even if they recover.
Non-Indicative Name: They're undead converted from the souls of mortals like knights of Solamnia or Takhisis, instead of conventional wights who rose from hateful mortals or those who made pacts with dark deities. They're also not quite Living Shadow monsters either, instead shadow wights are more accurately "holes in the fabric of reality."
Supernatural Fear Inducer: A shadow wight can fix its despairing visage onto a victim, forcing them to save or cower in fear.
Vampiric Draining: Implied; while shadow wights may have been intended by Chaos to nullify everything they encounter, the undead actually seem to prefer to keep from erasing their victims entirely, and will back off and let their victims recover their lost Charisma, then attack again days later. The practice has been compared to keeping herds of cattle, and suggests that the shadow wights derive sustenance from their Charisma-damaging attacks.
Weakened by the Light: Any bright, open flame renders a shadow wight powerless, unable to attack and capable only of fleeing out of its radiance.

Shadowperson

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Good

Mysterious humanoids whose clans dwell underground, keeping themselves hidden from the surface world.

Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: They're dazzled in natural or magical areas of bright light.
Hidden Elf Village: Though one of the oldest races on Krynn, the shadowpeople have been forgotten by outsiders, and prefer to be thought of as mere creatures of myth. They dwell far away from other races' settlements, and any explorers who blunder into shadowperson territory are captured, telepathically interrogated, and either sworn to secrecy or fed a memory-erasing potion. In the rare event shadowpeople visit the surface, they use hooded cloaks to conceal their identities.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Shadowpeople's signature weapon is the "shadowstaff," which can be used to make disarm or trip attacks, but is most notable for being able to impale opponents on its hooked blade, dealing Damage Over Time and imposing penalties on rolls until the victim frees themself.
Not Quite Flight: Their patagia aren't enough to let shadowpeople fly, but allow them to glide and negate any falling damage.
Psychic Link: By conducting an hour-long ritual in which participants link hands and chant in unison, shadowpeople can establish a psychic connection in which participants share a "collective awareness," granting a bonus on attack rolls, initiative checks and saving throws. Non-shadowpeople can join in on this, but only by succeeding a tough Intelligence (2nd Edition) or Concentration (3E) check.
Psychic Powers: Shadowpeople are natural telepaths, and can communicate mentally with any intelligent being with a language. They can also detect thoughts at will, and their mental awareness of other creatures grants them an Armor Class bonus as well.
The Sacred Darkness: The deepest cavern of a shadowperson clan's caves is considered scared, and kept in permanent darkness. This is where their Revered Ancient One dwells, a "manifestation of the mindweave of the shadowpeople" who can provide guidance and healing magic for their clan.
Super-Senses: Beyond their telepathic abilities, enjoy both darkvision and blindsense.

Shaedling

Classification: Fey (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Wicked winged fey whose spinnerets exude shapeable shadow-stuff.

Casting a Shadow: A shaedling holds command over shadow, in the same way as spiders weave webs. Once per day they can generate a wall of darkness up to 30 feet long, which only creatures with darkvision can see through.
Evil Counterpart: Shaedlings are such to pixies, as their ancestors followed the drow into the Underdark following the elven schism. Through unlike drow and surface elves, shaedlings cannot breed with normal pixies.
Explosive Breeder: They're quite prolific, coupling "wantonly" to produce eggs that hatch within a month, and newborns grow to adulthood in a year. As a trade-off, shaedlings only live about 20 years or so.
Forced Sleep: Shaedlings can use a javelin made of shadow gossamer to put a creature to sleep, as well as potentially all who touch that creature.
Spontaneous Weapon Creation: They can swiftly create weapons or shields out of shadow gossamer, most commonly javelins and spiked chains. The catch is that such items dissipate one round after leaving a shaedling's hands.
Winged Humanoid: Shaedlings resemble drow of short stature with solid black eyes and dark dragonfly wings.

Shalarin

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

Deep-dwelling aquatic humanoids with distinct dorsal fins running along their bodies.

Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: There aren't any game effects, but shalarin usually live in the deeper parts of the ocean (they're comfortable even 730 meters below the surface), and as such find the light of even an overcast day unpleasant. Sometimes they'll wear protective goggles when forced to travel to the ocean's surface.
Fantastic Caste System: Shalarin society is divided into four castes, the Protectors, Providers, Scholars and Seekers. All but the Protectors can be divided into sub-castes, so the Providers caste emcompasses working-class laborers, simple servants, and the shalarin rulers. In most cases a shalarin egg's coloration indicates which greater caste the child will belong to, and the specifics of a shalarin's body coloration may indicate their sub-caste — sages have a red stripe along the edge of their fins, while arcanists have red stripes along the base of their fins, for example — but the Protectors caste can be made up of shalarin of any skin tone or color pattern. All this to say, shalarin usually try to work out what caste other races belong to in order to understand how to deal with them, which can lead to confusion if a shalarin is confronted by a warrior who also cooks and sings.
Fantastic Racism: Shalarin remain aloof towards sea elves due to past persecutions by that race (or in the Realms, specifically an attempted shalarin genocide by Dagon-aligned sea elves and merfolk). On the other hand, shalarin are the only race the locathah don't fear since they never tried to enslave the locathah at any point.
Our Mermaids Are Different: They lack the traditional "fishy lower half," for starters, and instead swim with the help of their signature dorsal fins and webbed hands and feet. Shalarin also have gills on their ribs, and can't breathe air.
Our Nudity Is Different: While their warriors are known for wearing armor made from pearls or a material called silverweave, most shalarin only wear a belt or harness to carry items, while their nobles might wear sheer or silky garments as a mark of status. Some art suggests they don't need to cover anything.
Unscaled Merfolk: Shalarin's sleek skin is similar to a dolphin's in texture, but comes in a variety of vivid colors, from silvery to ivory, red, orange or midnight blue.

Shambling Mound

^3e

Classification: Plant (3E, 5E), Natural Animate (4E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E), 9 (4E), 5 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Vaguely anthropomorphic plants that wander constantly in search of food.

Art Evolution: Their depiction varies from a Plant Person in 1st and 2nd Edition, to something almost indistinguishable from a pile of leaves and vines in 3rd Edition, to a monstrous mass of green roots in 4th and 5th Edition.
Expy: The 1e shambling mound, as shown in its Monster Manual entry and module artwork by Jeff Easley◊, had glittering eyes with a snout-like root hanging between them, giving it a resemblance to Man-Thing.
Feed It with Fire: Shambling mounds are in fact spawned when lightning or fey magic invigorates a swamp plant. As such, electricity attacks heal them.
He Was Right There All Along: Shambling mounds are slow, and thus rely on ambushing prey, lying still and trying to appear as just another pile of rotting vegetation.
Man-Eating Plant: They devour any organic matter in their path, whether it's plants or animals. Humans are very much on the menu if they don't get out of the way.
Playing Possum: Shambling mounds are smart enough to feign death in the face of overwhelming opposition. So long as the root-stem that animates them survives an encounter, the creature can slowly regrow its body and go back to the hunt.
Swallowed Whole: They can simply engulf grappled enemies, dealing bludgeoning damage each round and preventing their victim from breathing.
Underground Monkey: Deserts and wastelands sport "tumbling mounds," slightly weaker regional variants of shambling mounds that look like oversized thorny tumbleweeds. Rather than engulfing prey, tumbling mounds wrap them in thorns and drain their blood.

Sharakim

Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Lawful Good

Horned, tusked humanoids believed to have been created by an ancient sin, and thus compensate by being as friendly and law-abiding as possible while around other races.

Creation Myth: Theirs is tied to the legend of Desh, said to have been humanity's first settlement. One day some hunters spotted a magnificent white deer, and a man named Sharak ignored his companions' warnings and killed and cooked the creature for a feast. Soon after, a god cursed those who ate the deer's meat with gray or coal-black skin and twisted features, leading the unaffected humans to flee the cursed village. The sharakim, or "tainted ones," consider themselves descendents of Sharak and his fellow cursed humans.
Dark Is Not Evil: Sharakim are dedicated to illustrating this trope, and welcome chances to interact with other people and display how generous, helpful, educated, well-groomed, etc. they are. This leads humans to compare sharakim to puppies eager for company and any sort of attention.
Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Like 3E orcs, sharakim have both darkvision and the "Light Sensitivity" trait.
Genius Bruiser: They get racial bonuses to both Strength and Intelligence, at the cost of penalties to Dexterity and Charisma.
Horned Humanoid: In addition to orc-like tusks, sharakim have a set of small, curved horns protruding from their temples.
Internalized Categorism: Sharakim are taught from childhood that they were born from sin and their very existence is a curse upon the world, and are sullen when left to themselves.
Our Orcs Are Different: Subverted; sharakim look rather orc-like (and are mistrusted as such by most other races), but they're actually a Human Subspecies with the human subtype, and have no relation to Gruumsh's children. Sharakim still despise orcs (to the extent of getting a racial bonus on attack rolls against them) as an example of what they could become, and sharakim consciously differentiate themselves from orcs by being law-abiding, fastidious, and erudite, learning to properly enunciate words despite their tusks.
Stealth Expert: Despite their claims to the contrary, sharakim function best in the shadows, gaining a racial bonus to stealth skills while in low-light conditions.

Shardmind

Classification: Immortal Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (4E)
Playable: 4E
Alignment: Any

Psionic entities with crystalline bodies, the shardminds are the sapient fragments of the Living Gate that once protected the mortal world from Far Realm incursions, and seek to rebuild that bulwark, though the shardminds disagree on how to accomplish this.

Ancient Order of Protectors: The shardminds in general are this, with the "Thought Builder" sect in particular being dedicated to building a new Living Gate to protect reality from the Far Realm.
Crystalline Creature: Shardminds' bodies are made up of hundreds of crystal fragments that are arranged in a humanoid shape, though they are constantly in motion, moving like blood through a fleshy body. A stunned or otherwise incapacitated shardmind might end up with some of their shards orbiting their body until they literally pull themselves together.
A God Am I: Shardminds of the "God Shard" philosophy hold that each shardmind is a fragment of divine power, with a responsibility to nurture that power to keep the Far Realm at bay.
Hunter of His Own Kind: Shardminds of the "Shard Slayer" philosophy believe that the death of each shardmind causes their energy to return to the Living Gate, strengthening the world's resistance to the Far Realm. Thus, they hunt down and kill shardminds of rival philosophies, and seek out nascent fragments of the Living Gate to prevent them from awakening into shardminds. Unsurprisingly, such Shard Slayers are Evil.
The Needless: As living constructs, shardminds don't need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep (though they still need six hours of rest each day).
No Biological Sex: While a shardmind's crystal body might appear masculine or feminine, they don't have a notion of gender, nor do they reproduce in a conventional sense. Instead, whenever a shardmind dies, another fragment of the Living Gate awakens into sentience.
One to Million to One: Both variants play this straight.
- Traumatic: All shardminds are born from the pieces of the Living Gate.
- At-will: While shardminds usually hold humanoid form, they don't have to, and their racial power lets them loosen their mental grip on their shards to reform themselves elsewhere. The so-called shard disciples take this even further, and learn to create a whirlwind of crystal shards to damage enemies before reforming.
The Spock: As beings of thought controlling crystal forms, shardminds are logical, emotionally distant, and somewhat naive to how the world works. They're not completely stoic, however — if a shardmind loses their cool, they don't become annoyed, they go straight to enraged.

Shardsoul

Classification: Construct (3E), Elemental Animate (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 8 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Deranged combat constructs that infect other creatures with their madness. They have no relation to the shardminds above.

Infectious Insanity: Shardsoul constructs exist on the brink of madness, and are surrounded by a disorienting aura that affects adjacent creatures as per lesser confusion.
Kill One, Others Get Stronger: When a shardsoul slayer is destroyed, its essence reunites with that of another shardsoul within 120 feet, granting the recipient a temporary buff to attack rolls or Armor Class, or a haste effect.
Merger of Souls: Inverted; the first shardsoul constructs were created by the derro, who splinter a single elemental spirit in order to animate several construct bodies. This gives the constructs a rudimentary intelligence, but also a deranged imperative to spread their suffering to others, yet they also see their own destruction as a means of reuniting their sundered elemental essence.
Retcon: 3rd Edition shardsoul slayers are created by the derro out of mutilated elemental spirits, while in 4E they're instead crafted from extraplanar iron carved from the body of Telos, a slumbering primordial.
Taking You with Me: As these constructs are more or less Death Seekers, they have no sense of self-preservation, and are perfectly willing to chrage into a hopeless fight for a chance to kill an enemy, or bull rush a foe over the edge of a cliff.

Sharn

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Aberration (3E), Aberrant Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E), 12 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil (4E)

Large multi-headed, multi-armed beings thought to have been spawned from the essence of chaos.

Arch-Enemy: Sharns absolutely despise the phaerimm, and ancient wars between the two have literally shaped the face of Toril.
Deadly Decadent Court: The sharn's society is described as "a bedlam of political argument and social intrigue," constantly embroiled in ideological conflict. This doesn't prevent some sharn from getting involved in other race's affairs, but their agenda in those cases is rarely obvious.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Sharn have three arms that split to end in three hands apiece, allowing them to wield nine weapons at once.
No-Sell: They cannot be polymorphed against their will, nor can they change their own shape beyond shifting between their solid and liquid forms. Even stranger, no other creature is capable of shapeshifting into a sharn form. Sharns' peculiar minds also render them immune to any mind-influencing effects, and in 2nd Edition they're noted to see through illusions as well.
Mind Hive: Each sharn is an amalgamation of multiple personalities, and they speak with different voices from their three mouths.
A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In 2nd Edition, anyone who attempts to make mental contact with a sharn runs the risk of having their brain scrambled for a feeblemind effect.
Our Monsters Are Weird: Sharns are 3000-pound masses of black and silver matter that naturally exists as a pool of pseudo-fluid, but they can freely assume a 12- to 15-foot teardrop-shaped, legless body, wreathed in magical flames, featuring three eyeless heads and three eye-studded arms with three humanoid hands apiece. Their internal anatomy is even stranger (i.e. they don't have any), allowing sharns to survive in airless environments.
The Red Mage: They cast spells as both sorcerers and clerics, without requiring material components or divine foci.
Thinking Up Portals: Sharns can generate "hex portals," translucent, hexagon-shaped panels of purple light, as a full-round action, which afterward can be shifted as a free action. A sharn can see and attack through these portals, other creatures cannot.
Was Once a Man: In their home setting, the first sharns were the survivors of the ancient elven empire of Miyeritar, who transformed themselves to survive a magical cataclysm (it is unknown whether they intended to become such creatures, or if a ritual went wrong). Since then, other members of fallen civilizations have opted to become sharns to survive.

Shedu

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

Creatures resembling winged bulls with a third foreleg and a bearded humanoid head, who travel the planes extolling virtue and helping those in need of guidance or protection.

Art Evolution: 2nd Edition shedu had specifically equine bodies, but 3rd Edition gave them the winged bodies of bovines instead.
Cool Crown: 3rd Edition shedim are always seen wearing ornate gilded crowns worthy of kings, but never speak of their crowns to anyone. 2nd Edition shedu instead wear headbands with a single gem or metal emblem on them, the more valuable the ornament, the more powerful the shedu.
Dimensional Traveler: Shedim can shift to and from the Ethereal Plane as a free action, and can use astral projection once per week.
The Good Chancellor: Shedim are excellent advisors, thanks to both their ability to focus and their immunity to mind-control, and are often sought out by good clerics hoping for their council.
No-Sell: A shedu's fifth leg grants them uncanny stability, rendering them immune to being moved against their will, from bull rush attempts to Bigby's forceful hand. Similarly, their superior rational brain renders them immune to any mind-affecting effects.
Psychic Powers: AD&D specifies that shedu are natural psionicists, with each specializing in a psionic discipline. Greater shedu are noted to be such talented telepaths that they can make rudimentary psychic contact with plants.
Seers: They can use clairaudience/clairvoyance at will.
Shedu and Lammasu: Shedim are noted to be close cousins of the lammasu, but are somewhat more proactive than their kin, serving as advisors or guards for good folk rather than contemplative hermits.
Trampled Underfoot: That fifth leg also serves well when a shedu runs over opponents.
White Magic: They're constantly surrounded by a magic circle against evil.

Sheet Phantom / Sheet Ghoul

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_sheet_phantom_2e.jpg

Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (phantom), 2 (ghoul) (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

A sheet phantom is a nearly-translucent, animate sheet of fabric that enwraps its victims, transforming them into sheet ghouls.

Bedsheet Ghost: Almost literally, as sheet phantoms look like bedsheets with glowing green eyespots that appear when they attack prey, and can be turned as wraiths. Some sages think they're undead lurkers, but they're actually bedsheets that have absorbed the life force of an evil person who died in their bed.
Our Ghouls Are Different: Sheet ghouls look almost like normal ghouls, save for the wispy fabric clinging to their faces like cobwebs, or carried like shawls. Unlike standard ghouls, their touch doesn't cause paralysis, and they can spit a stream of acid out to 10 feet. Normal ghouls and ghasts can recognize a sheet ghoul on sight and drive them off, since sheet ghouls' inability to create spawn makes them useless to those pack hunters.
Puppeteer Parasite: Should anyone die while grappled and squeezed by a sheet phantom, it merges with their body, turning it into a sheet ghoul over 12 hours.
Sinister Suffocation: 3rd Edition lets them enwrap and suffocate victims.

Shield Guardian

Classification: Construct (3E, 5E), Natural Animate (4E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E), 14 (4E), 7 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Magical constructs that protect and serve whoever bears a specified amulet.

Healing Factor: They recover a fixed number of hit points on each of their turns.
The Kid with the Remote Control: A shield guardian obeys and protects whoever currently possesses its corresponding amulet. As such, people have been known to attack a shield guardian's ward specifically to steal that amulet and gain possession of the guardian itself.
Powers as Programs: A shield guardian can "store" a spell of up to 4th level, which it can then expend on command or if a certain condition is met.
Synchronization: Shield guardians are magically linked to their owners, and if the owner is within 60 feet of their guardian, any damage that the owner takes will be split between the two of them.
Taking the Bullet: If an attack threatens to injure its owner, a shield guardian can magically absorb the blow into its own body, even at a distance.
Telepathy: Whoever bears a shield guardian's amulet can communicate telepathically with it no matter the distance, so long as they're on the same plane of existence. The shield guardian in turn always knows the direction to its master.

Runic Guardian

Classification: Construct (3E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Rune-inscribed constructs that share many abilities with shield guardians, but can be considered a direct upgrade over them, albeit more expensive and difficult to construct.

Cycle of Hurting: Their fists are filled with lead and hit like a truck, so anyone struck by the runic guardian's slam attacks has to succeed at a high Fortitude save or be stunned for a round. In a one-on-one fight, this can lead to a fatal case of stunlocking.
Magic Knight: Rather than storing one particular spell, a runic guardian has six spells built into its arms, legs, torso and head during the creation process. It can use each of these spells once per day, either on command or when a certain condition is met, and the spells' level is determined by which part of the body they're inscribed upon.
Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: Runic guardians have a slight downside compared to shield guardians in that they can't be "reset" to serve another master. A runic guardian knows the instant its master dies no matter the distance, and will immediately go berserk, attacking everything in sight until destroyed. Retrieving its amulet does nothing to prevent this.
Obvious Rule Patch: While runic guardians are keyed to a magic amulet like shield guardians, all the item does is allow the construct to teleport without error to the amulet when called, once per day. A runic guardian is bound to a specific individual as its master upon creation, and if some thief steals the amulet and summons the construct, the runic guardian's first act is going to be to try to kill the pretender.
Runic Magic: As indicated by their name, runic guardians' bodies are covered in runes crafted from precious metals, which glow when they use their inscribed spell-like abilities. This makes the constructs especially popular with dwarves and giants.
Superior Successor: Anything a shield guardian can do, a runic guardian can do better. Their Fast Healing is better and comes with sturdy Damage Reduction (which offsets their slightly lower health), their armor is better and their physical attacks hit harder, their "guard" ability imparts a better armor bonus to their master, their shield other ability works at a greater range and absorbs 75% of an attack's damage instead of splitting it 50-50, and so forth.

Shifter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/636678092611992260.png

Origin: Eberron
Classificaiton: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E, 5E), 6 (4E)
Playable: 3E-5E
Alignment: True Neutral (3E), Any (4E, 5E)

Sometimes called "weretouched," these humanoids can "shift" into a more bestial state, gaining animalistic traits that vary by their subspecies. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Shimmerling

Classification: Fey (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Inches-high fey that are normally harmless, but can form dangerous swarms when under stress.

Amazing Technicolor Population: Their skin and hair can be any color of the rainbow.
Hypnotic Creature: A shimmerling swarm's light and movement can hypnotize onlookers, and any who fail their saves will stand and watch the display in fascination.
Our Fairies Are Different: Shimmerlings look like four-inch-tall, naked elves with butterfly wings.
Phosphor-Essence: Shimmerlings glow the same color as their bodies, and when they form a swarm, the combined light can replicate a daylight effect and dazzle any creatures within a 60-foot radius.
The Swarm: An individual shimmerling is a near-mindless pollen-feeder about as deadly as a sparrow, but when their food supply or habitat is threatened, or in response to predation, these fey gather in swarms that develop a group consciousness and are capable of overwhelming much larger creatures. In some cases these swarms are simply a way to relocate a shimmerling population, but other times the fey may go after what they think is causing their problems.

Shirokinukatsukami

Origin: Kara-tur
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 14 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Good

Also known as "Eaters of Dreams," these bizarre-looking but benign spirits protect slumbering humans.

Baku: These things are quite clearly meant to be the trunked dream-eaters of legend, but unfortunately there were already "baku" in a 1st Edition Monster Manual that were carried on to Planescape — aside from having trunks, these "baku" had little to do with their source creature, and had Psychic Powers rather than any association with dreams. Thus we have a separate entry dubbed a "shirokinukatsukami," which the Forgotten Realms Wiki speculates is an attempt at "white silk spirit" or "bedsheets spirit."
Don't Make Me Destroy You: Shirokinukatsukami are both courteous and dangerous opponents, who will never initiate combat, but instead warn an enemy of the foolishness of their actions, and suggest they cease their evil ways and withdraw. Foes who persist, or who threaten a shirokinukatsukami's charge, are then attacked without mercy.
Dream Walker: They can freely enter a sleeper's dreams, but only to deliver a message or protect the sleeper from a malign influence. If someone has a dream that features a shirokinukatsukami relaxing somewhere by dancing or gardening, it simply means they have some divine protection.
Invisibility: They can turn invisible at will, and usually remain as such while standing guard at the head of a sleeper's bed.
Mix-and-Match Critters: They have the body of a horse, the paws and hind legs of a tiger, the arms of an ape, the tail of a cow, the face and mane of a lion, the eyes of a human, and the trunk and tusks of an elephant.
Signature Laugh: They laugh often, even during conversation, which sounds like the cawing of a crow.
White Magic: They wield spells such as magic circle against evil, dispel evil, heal and even raise dead.

Shivad

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_shivhad_3e.jpg

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 21 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These 40-foot-tall arctic horrors normally sleep beneath glaciers, but when they awaken they subjugate surrounding settlements.

Cunning Linguist: Shivads are surprisingly good at picking up and speaking local languages, without any trace of an accent. Though since they talk with six booming mouths at once, they can be quite intimidating when they communicate.
Giant Spider: They're roughly spiderlike, but have three claws in addition to their eight legs, six slavering maws on tentacles, and bodies dotted with eyes.
Home Field Advantage: Shivads have a mystical bond with their home glacier, and while in the area enjoy a bonus to their Armor Class and saving throws. Furthermore, the monster knows the exact location of any creature in contact with the glacier, out to 10 miles.
Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Shivads browbeat nearby communities into providing them with weekly Human Sacrifices the monsters can hunt, torment and consume.
An Ice Person: They're surrounded by a 60-foot aura of cold intense enough to deal damage and extinguish nonmagical flames. Shivads also heal damage when cold-based magic fails to overcome their spell resistance.
Non-Health Damage: Their bite attacks drain points from all of a victim's ability scores, healing the shivad in the process.

Shocker Lizard

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Little blue reptiles that can blast would-be predators with electricity.

Attack Animal: Some of the fashionably rich host colonies of shocker lizards in their gardens or courtyards as a deterrent against thieves, though the creatures may require special training not to attack servants or playing children.
Roar Before Beating: A realistic take on the trope; when a potential threat approachs, a shocker lizard tries to warn them away with a low-powered electrical discharge, audible as a series of rapid clicks, and just strong enough for the other creature to feel on their skin and scalp. If the interloper persists, they get a stronger zap.
Shock and Awe: The body of shocker lizards can generate intense electrical shocks. An individual creature can only deal nonlethal damage to a single foe within five feet, but two or more shocker lizards can combine their voltage in a 20-foot-radius burst of lethal electricity, centered on one lizard, that grows more powerful the more shocker lizards contribute to it. If six shocker lizards act in concert, the combined damage outperforms a fireball spell.
Super-Senses: Due to their affinity for electricity, shocker lizards can detect any electrical discharges within 100 feet.

Shrieker

Classification: Plant (3E, 5E), Natural Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 4 (4E), 0 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Human-sized mushrooms that dwell underground and respond to stimulus with a piercing scream.

Enemy Summoner: A non-magical example; shriekers emit a horrible racket for several rounds if they sense light or movement within 10 feet or so, which can attract other creatures in the cavern or dungeon the fungus is growing in. Even non-sapient monsters can come to treat a shrieker's shrieking as a dinner bell, while intelligent creatures may cultivate shriekers as organic alarm systems.
Fungus Humongous: They can grow between four and seven feet tall.
No-Sell: Shriekers are immune to the poison of violet fungi, and have a symbiotic relationship with their fellow fungus — the shriekers attract curious creatures with their noise, which the violet fungi kill with their tentacles and poison, allowing both fungi to feed on the decomposing remains.

Shrieking Terror

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (five-headed), 13 (ten-headed) (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Winged, multi-headed horrors that attack anything not native to the Tarterian Depths of Carceri, paralyzing enemies with their screams and dooming them to a monstrous transformation with a "kiss."

Anti-Regeneration: Shrieking terrors' bite attacks carry a poison that renders victims unable to heal the damage from said bites, naturally or magically, until they're treated with a neutralize poison or heal spell (delay poison will allow for magical, but not natural, healing).
Attack Animal: These monsters have been known to serve as advance troops for the demodands in Carceri's many internal conflicts.
Beast with a Human Face: They have five to ten slightly-oversized humanoid heads on the end of each tentacle, and shrieking terrors can attack with all of them at once on a successful charge attack.
Hybrid Monster: They're magical crossbreeds of hydras and vargouilles.
Hydra Problem: Like hydras, if a shrieking terror loses a head to a sunder attack, it sprouts two more in a few rounds, unless some fire and acid damage is applied to the stump. The monsters can only support ten heads at a time, and any extra gained will wither and die within a day. While enemies can choose to attack a shrieking terror's body, its Healing Factor means that carefully severing all of its heads can be a faster way to kill it.
Monster Lord: Zig-zagged; some vargouilles revere shrieking terrors to the point of worship, others attack them as abominations.
The Paralyzer: These monsters are named for their terrible, multi-mouthed shrieking, a full-round action that affects everyone within 60 feet, forcing them to save or be frozen in fear.
The Virus: A shrieking terror can "kiss" a paralyzed opponent, forcing them to save or begin transforming into a vargouille over the next 24 hours.

Siege Crab

Classification: Vermin (3E)
Challenge Rating: 14 (standard), 18 (greater) (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Gargantuan crabs converted into living war machines by undersea races such as the kuo-toa and sahuagin.

Bioweapon Beast: Siege crabs are created in a decades-long process involving both magic and surgery, the most drastic of which is the removal of much of the crab's interior tissue, allowing for the creation of an air- and water-tight compartment in its carapace, accessed through a hatch on the crab's belly. While this compartment provides considerable protection to up to 4 Medium-sized passengers, should the crab die, it will most likely collapse onto its belly, forcing the occupants to cut their way through the carapace to escape.
Deflector Shields: A siege crab's carapace is inscribed with runes that project a field of force around it, granting bonuses to the monster's Armor Class and saving throws, as well as an immunity to magic missile attacks. This protective field returns a few rounds after being hit with dispel magic, and only spells like Mordenkainen's disjunction can permanently nullify it.
Giant Enemy Crab: The standard siege crab is a Gargantuan creature, 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide, while the greater variant is Colossal in size, standing 20 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter, with a corresponding increase in the number of creatures that can fit inside its compartment.
Remote Body: Each siege crab is keyed to a specially-created coral circlet, which allows the wearer to command the monster, see through its eyes, and cast spells through the creature. Unlike constructs, however, siege crabs can't be given conditional instructions, and thus require constant direction, simply standing still if the circlet's wearer moves out of range.
Trampled Underfoot: They're large enough to damage anything they skitter over.

Silk Wyrm

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Natural Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (hatchling), 3 (adult), 14 (elder) (4E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Giant flying serpents that can reach lengths of 50 feet, known for dragging off helpless victims to feed upon at their leisure.

All Webbed Up: After paralyzing prey, if it doesn't consume them in the field, a silk wyrm will drag the unfortunate back to its lair to be wrapped up in a silken cocoon. "Bound creatures can look forward to several days of slow feeding, until the silk wyrms kill them or they die of thirst."
Flight: Though wingless, silk wyrms can still fly through undisclosed means.
It Can Think: Fully-grown silk wyrms have near-human level intelligence, but they're The Speechless and regard other creatures as threats or prey. However, psionic creatures such as braxats and psurlons sometimes bribe silk wyrms to serve as trackers or guards in exchange for food.
Living Shadow: They can assume a shadow form to aid in stealth and slip past obstacles.
Luring in Prey: 4th Edition silk wyrms can make a "mesmerizing dread" attack, dealing psychic damage and enticing victims closer.
The Paralyzer: Their bites carry a paralytic venom, which can render victims helpless for days at a time in their 2nd Edition rules.
Vampiric Draining: They drain blood from their victims, reducing their Constitution by 1 point per feeding (in 2nd Edition), or taking away a healing surge along with a Life Drain effect (in 4th Edition).
You Have to Burn the Web: Averted; silk wyrm thread is both very tough and fire resistant, another reason it's so valuable.

Silt Horror

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Aberrant Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 12 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

The krakens of Athas' Sea of Silt, these monsters grab prey in their tentacles and drag them beneath the sandy surface to be devoured.

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: 2nd Edition has several varieties of silt horror defined by their coloration, from the small black variety to the huge, sickly-gray horrors.
Giant Squid: Their bodies look something like eyeless, shell-less nautiluses, and several silt horror varieties can use air jets to rapidly escape and kick up an obscuring cloud of dust, similar to a sea squid's ink.
It Can Think: Most silt horrors are at best semi-intelligent, but magma horrors are smarter than the average human, and capable of making psychic contact with other creatures using mind link and send thoughts, but only to convince this victim to come into its lair to be devoured.
Living Lava: Magma horrors look as such, and are immune to fire but weak to cold effects. They live in areas of geothermal or volcanic activity, and drag prey into boiling water or outright lava pools.
Luring in Prey: Gray horrors use their control sound and create sound psionic powers to coax prey close by creating whimpering or the sound of nearby running water. Red horrors instead make psychic contact with a creature and use false sensory input to create an illusion of what it desires most. Brown horrors just use domination to force their victims to move towards them.
The Paralyzer: Black silt horrors have spined tentacles carrying a paralytic poison, while red silt horrors deliver a similar venom their bite attacks.
Super-Senses: Silt horrors are blind, but can sense the movement of creatures on the silt from three miles away.
Tentacled Terror: In most cases, all victims see of these creatures are their tentacles erupting from the silt's surface, grabbing and constricting prey. Fortunately, these tentacles can be targeted and severed to free victims.

Silt Runner

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (4E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Small but speedy reptilian humanoids who raid their neighbors.

Battle Trophy: About the only thing silt runners will wear are the clothes, treasure or body parts of their victims.
Fantastic Racism: Silt runners hate elves, to the extent that they'll break off an attack on a caravan for an opportunity to go after a lone elf (it helps that silt runners find elves delicious). Meanwile, the giants who make their homes on the same Sea of Silt islands as the silt runners, consider the much smaller creatures to be pests or vermin that are "just too fast to swat properly."
Lizard Folk: A Small, speedy example thought to be related to Athas' ssurrans.
Super-Speed: While the trait is greatly downplayed in 4th Edition, whose silt runners are only 1 movement point faster than the average humanoid, in 2nd Edition their movement value is an astonishing 48, twice as fast as a light horse. This allows silt runners to zip across the surface of sand or silt without sinking, hence their name.
Zerg Rush: They'll only attack if they enjoy a 3-to-1 numerical advantage, and employ wave tactics to prevail in field battles.

Silthilar

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Good

The remnants of a race of fleshcrafters that escaped a magical plague by transforming themselves into countless motes of flesh, which can freely recombine into their original shapes.

Biomanipulation: When they aren't flat-out changing creatures' shapes entirely, silthilar are adept at applying specialized grafts to subjects — flexible spines, improved muscles or bones, chitinous plating, regenerative blood, and so forth.
Dark Is Not Evil: The silthilar have utterly alien bodies (when they even have solid bodies) and can effortlessly reshape other creatures as they see fit, but apart from the odd rogue swarms, the silthilar's skill at reshaping life is balanced by their respect for it, and they'll only work on voluntary test subjects or paying customers.
Forced Transformation: They can spend a full-round action by swarming a creature and subjecting it to a polymorph any object effect, transforming it into another living creature.
Hive Mind: Each mote of flesh that constitutes a silthilar is the physical embodiment of a piece of their race's lore, so a swarm of them creates a hive mind that can function as a single entity.
Kukris Are Kool: They favor kukris as melee weapons, and store them in dimensional pockets when in their swarm form.
One to Million to One: Silthilar can freely switch between their "swarm" form, a cloud of fleshy motes, and their "coalesced" forms, which are approximations of their original bodies.
Starfish Aliens: An individual silthilar mote is a half-inch mass of fleshy tendrils and bony hooks, but a cloud of such motes can coalesce into a human-sized shape with four arms and hands around its lower body, four hooked limbs around its upper body, and a mass of little tendrils for a "head" at the top.

Simurgh

Origin: Al-Qadim
Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Good

Large magical avians with golden wings, whose virtue and wisdom have earned them the title "King of Birds."

Actual Pacifist: Simurghs are pacifistic creatures who rarely enter combat, even to save another's life, and prefer to instead distract would-be opponents with their tail feathers.
Beast with a Human Face: They resemble enormous peacocks with two sets of golden wings, glowing tail feathers, and a human head.
Eye of Newt: Their glorious tail feathers can be used to make a potion of rainbow hues or incorporated into a robe of scintillating colors to reduce its production cost. Alternatively, a simurgh feather can be used to pen a scroll of color spray, hypnotic pattern, prismatic sphere, prismatic spray, prismatic wall, or rainbow pattern.
Hermit Guru: It is said that simurghs are so ancient that they have seen the world destroyed by sandstorm, deluge and earthquake, and some will go on quests to seek out their wisdom. Should a supplicant bring information a simurgh does not already know, it will answer three questions, but those who have nothing new, original or wise to share with the creature will instead become its next meal — simurghs' "usual diet is fish, insects and small mammals, but they make exceptions for fools."
Hypnotic Creature: A simurgh can unfold its golden tail, which then glows with all the colors of the rainbow, forcing all within 50 feet to save or be hypnotized for several rounds, able to do nothing but stare at the display.
Light 'em Up: They can cast searing light in 3rd Edition. Additionally, a simurgh's tail feather, is freely given, will radiate daylight in a 30-foot radius. If taken from a dead simurgh, the magic will fade with the next dawn.
Loyal Animal Companion: As the "King of Birds," a simurgh is usually accompanied by a "court" of lesser avians, from mundane falcons and condors to giant eagles to rocs, who may even help guard a simurgh's young.
Razor Wings: In an absolute emergency, a simurgh can attack with wing buffets, in which case its metallic, razor-sharp feathers slice at opponents.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Simurghs can polymorph into a small bird, or a human form.

Sinister

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

Sometimes classified as a type of "deep bat," these Large, silent flyers are eerie, but not actually malicious.

Dark Is Not Evil: They're mysterious and unnervingly quiet, but sinisters aren't evil or aggressive towards humanoids.
Flying Seafood Special: They resemble flying manta rays with nine-foot wingspans.
It Can Think: Sinisters can be smarter than the average human, and can even cast hold monster, though they only communicate with each other, using telepathy.
Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Sinisters love good music, whether sung or instrumental. "Many a bard making music at a wilderness campfire has found him or herself surrounded by a silent circle of floating sinisters."
No-Sell: They're surrounded by a magical field that blocks mundane missile attacks and can even nullify magical attacks like magic missile and Melf's acid arrow.
Not Quite Flight: They don't really fly, but have a natural levitate ability they use in conjunction with their wings, or to just hover in the air.

Sink Worm

Origin: Dark Sun
Alignment: Unaligned

50-foot-long, maggot-like creatures that burst from sand or silt to swallow prey.

Dig Attack: They like to attack by bursting out of the sand from beneath their prey.
Expy: Of all of D&D's Sand Worm creatures, this one follows the Trope Codifier the closest, and even has the Flower Mouth and inward-facing teeth of the original Dune film design (though with more "petals").
Intangibility: Aiding their movements through the sand is these worms' ability to "phase" through sand or rocky outcroppings, so long as this takes them less than 90 feet in one move. This ability also makes sink worms oddly quiet for their gargantuan size.
Sand Worm: They're giant worms that rapidly burrow beneath the desert sands, showing a distinct sign of their passage, until they detect the vibrations of prey running across the sand and surface to try and swallow their victims.
Swallowed Whole: They can swallow a man-sized target in a single attack if they roll well enough, after which the victim is subjected to ongoing damage in the worm's gullet until they either fight their way free or perish. "Two rounds after the victim reaches zero hit points, he is unrecoverable, except as small pieces."
Wormsign: Sink worms get their name for how they leave a sunken depression in the sand behind them as they move, a byproduct of how they filter sand and silt through their gills to breathe beneath the surface. "In spite of this clear warning sign, few prey escape once a sink worm begins hunting them."

Siren

Origin: Ravenloft
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Grotesque parodies of mermaids, who hide their hideousness with illusions and lure victims in with their singing before tearing them apart. Not to be confused with fey sirines below.

Anti-Regeneration: Sirens' bony fingers, sharpened against sea rocks, can infect victims of their clawing attacks, preventing the wounds from healing until the disease is cured.
Fan Disservice: They're basically undead mermaids, whose upper bodies are bloated and decayed like corpses left in water, while their hair has rotten seaweed entangled in it.
Lie to the Beholder: Sirens use advanced illusion to appear as voluptuous mermaids with sleek, sea-green hair. Viewers can save to disbelieve the effect, but those under the influence of the sirens' song will accept the illusion. This illusion is so powerful that it persists even when the siren attacks someone — the victim will perceive her clawing attacks as gentle caresses, but will be entitled to a saving throw each round to realize what's happening. Victims who suddenly see the sirens for what they really are might have to take a fear check.
Our Sirens Are Different: They're a twisted take on the "singing mermaid" interpretation, being undead horrors. In the Domains of Dread, sirens were first sighted along the Jagged Coast of Necropolis before spreading into other domains bordering the Sea of Sorrows, and there's speculation that they're merfolk who were transformed into an undead state by a burst of negative energy.
Siren Song: Their song can be heard up to a mile away, and replicates a charm person effect, compelling victims to travel to the sirens and sit next to the singers. Plugging sailors' ears with wax or a silence spell can foil this enchanting singing.

Sirine

Classification: Fey (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Ocean-dwelling female fey infamous for their bewitching songs. Not to be confused with the undead sirens above.

Compelling Voice: Any creature who hears a sirine's singing has to save or succumb to a charm person effect that lasts for 11 hours. AD&D states that if a sirine is somehow deprived of her voice, she will eventually perish.
Departure Means Death: Sirines love the sea, and according to 2nd Edition will wither away and die if confined away from the water.
One-Gender Race: Much like dryads and nymphs, sirines are all female, and reproduce by mating with male humans, elves, tritons or merfolk to produce daughters with physical features indicative of their fathers' race.
Our Sirens Are Different: Sirines are fully-female creatures who indeed lure in passersby with their magical singing, but unlike their mythological source, most sirines aren't malicious, and will merely have some fun with their visitors for a few hours before going home. Unless defending their homes, sirines usually deal with aggressors by slipping away into the water, or using their Intelligence-draining attack and other magic to incapacitate their foe, before dumping them somewhere far away.
Protect This House: While sirines are normally open to fun with strangers they meet out on the water, they keep cagey about the location of their actual homes, and about the only thing that can make a sirine violent is if someone gets close to their home, either by accident or by following the sirine.
Skinny Dipping: Sirines commonly go without clothing while swimming.
Stripperiffic: Sirines aren't known for wearing much when out of the water.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: The touch of a sirine can deal Intelligence damage (in 3rd Edition) or reduce a creature's Int score to 2 (in 2nd Edition). A sirine can undo this effect, even if it was caused by another sirine, with another touch.
Ungrateful Bitch: Sirines are notoriously untrusting of other creatures, and even if they accept someone's offer of aid, the sirine does not feel obligated to reward them for their service, and will treat them no differently than anyone else.

Sirrush

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 24 (standard), 28 (three-headed) (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Large apex predators that stalk potential prey for up to a day before attacking with unrelenting fury. Some sirrushes are born with three heads, and often come to dominate packs of their kin.

Food Chain of Evil: Sirrushes hunt anything, but specialize in taking down dragons, which can feed a pack for a week (though this won't stop them from hunting other creatures for sport).
Losing Your Head: Their armored bony plates do their best to avert this, and give sirrushes a saving throw against attacks from things like vorpal weapons that might otherwise cost them a head.
Panthera Awesome: Unlike the Mušḫuššu, their chimeric inspiration from Mesopotamian Mythology, these sirrushes resemble 650-pound cats covered in dragon-like scales rather than fur.
Super-Scream: Every few rounds they can loose a stunning roar affecting all creatures in a 60-foot cone.

Sisiutl

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Bizarre aquatic creatures often found guarding planar portals.

Beast with a Human Face: They have a humanoid face, at the junction between its two additional, serpentine heads and necks.
Giant Animal Worship: These Huge creatures are occasionally revered as servants of ocean gods by coastal peoples, who give them offerings of seal meat and fish.
Organ Drops: A sisiutl's blood can be rubbed on someone's skin to grant them the benefit of a 10th-level stoneskin spell. The problem is, this effect only lasts for ten minutes, the blood has to be fresh, and it washes off underwater.
Taken for Granite: Sisiutls' Deadly Gaze petrifies victims.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: A sisiutl can transform itself into a self-propelled war canoe with a grinning humanoid face in its middle, usually to assist a worthy mortal.

Siv

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_siv_3e.jpg

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classificaton: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

A race of batrachian humanoids known for their egotism, monastic traditions and manipulative natures.

Bare-Fisted Monk: Their favored class, though they favor the siangham, sling and net over their fists.
Frog Men: Sivs are a descendent or creation of the Realms' batrachi creator race, the same as the bullywugs. However, while powerful swimmers, sivs can't breathe underwater, and prefer to stay above the surface.
The Man Behind the Man: They prefer to operate like this — for example, in the Realms, the Marsh of Chelimber is nominally ruled by Kront the Lizard King, but the sivs' Order of the Frog serves as the true power behind his throne.
Small Name, Big Ego: As their entry puts it, "It's hard to be a race of self-assured elitist bigots in the Realms, a world full of magical races and mighty heroes, but the sivs try." The sivs' organization and intelligence lets them dominate the likes of bullywugs and lizardfolk in their home swamps, but they're constantly stymied whenever they try to expand into lands held by humanoids or goblinoids, and are honestly surprised by the difficulty they're having making inroads elsewhere.
Unknown Rival: In the Realms, the bullywugs consider the sivs their mortal foes, and constantly struggle against them for control of the swamps. "That's what the bullywugs think, anyway. The sivs know better: the war is over, and the bullywugs lost." The sivs only keep the bullywugs around as a buffer between them and the outside world, and because they find the bullywugs tasty.
Walk on Water: Sivs can move across the surface of still water as easily as they move across open ground by passing a simple Dexterity check. Water disturbed by small waves comes with a much higher Dexterity check, and they can't move this way if there are waves of six inches or higher, hence why the sivs prefer to stick to still bodies of water.

Skarn

Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Usually Lawful

Proud and sophisticated humanoids with reptilian spines on their forearms, calves and upper backs.

Blade Below the Shoulder: Their spines, which can grow to be a foot long but can flatten against their bodies for ease of movement, are natural weapons that deal as much damage as a short sword, and are empowered if the skarn has a soulmeld bound to their arms chakra. Skarns even have a Prestige Class to focus on their spine-fighting, and a related martial organization, the Hierarchy of Spinemeld Warriors. Their spines are also useful as climbing aids, or to help with an Intimidation check.
Can't Argue with Elves: Skarns are proud going on arrogant, an insular people who are obsessed with pursuing their own perfection and are mainly indifferent towards other races, but "expect lesser folk to be awed in their magnificent presence." However, for all their potential arrogance, the skarns consider rude or insulting behavior to be in very poor taste, whether by the "inferior races" or themselves.
Ogava Basa: Nothing's perfect. But a skarn is close.
Gladiator Games: Skarn society has a martial bent, and the aforementioned Hierarchy of Spinemeld Warriors holds ritualized fighting tournaments to hone their skills. Such bouts are not necessarily to the death, but can still be lethal, and while raise dead spells are available in case of mishaps, some combatants are fine with a death in the arena, and there are even special events where elderly skarns can seek an honorable end in battle. Successful spine-fighters are second only to the skarn nobility in esteem, but must endure heightened scrutiny as well as the attentions of those nobles, which can lead to subsequent duels over wandering eyes and illicit liaisons.
Nay-Theist: Downplayed; skarns believe they have attained near-"perfection of form" without divine help, and so venerate incarnum before any god. That said, they're not irreligious, and temples to Wee Jas are common in their communities.
Precursors: Like their rilkan brothers, the skarns are the creation of the now-vanished mishtai, who infused themselves with incarnum in their pursuit of "perfection of form." As the skarns tell it, the mishtai were close to achieving a perfect body combined with a perfect mind, until a faction of libertines gave up on the project to pursue their own goals, becoming the rilkans. The skarns have never forgiven the rilkans for ruining the mishtai's grand experiment, and consider themselves the heirs to the mishtai's quest.

Skeleton

Classification: Undead (3E-5E)
Challenge Rating: Varies by base creature's Hit Dice (3E), 3 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil, Unaligned (4E)

Spooky, scary and none too bright, skeletons are animated by necromancers to serve as guards, labourers, and more.

Amnesiac Resonance: Though near-mindless undead animated by dark power rather than the souls of their original bodies, skeletons free of a necromancer's direction have been observed performing actions from their lives, such as standing guard at doorways, digging away in mines, or dancing in a ruined ballroom.
Dem Bones: Animated by dark magic, a skeleton can move and think in a rudimentary fashion, though only as a pale imitation of the way it behaved in life.
Fossil Revival: One 3rd Edition skeleton variant is the "revived fossil," the animated, petrified bones of ancient creatures. Their main difference from ordinary skeletons is that the revived fossil's stony bones give it Damage Reduction that can only be overcome by adamantine weapons.
Non-Human Undead: Humanoids, animals, giants, dragons... if it has a skeletal structure, you can reanimate it as a skeleton.
Warrior Undead: Skeleton warriors are the skeletal remains of high-level fighters who retain their superb fighting ability. They wear rotting armor and use swords (usually two-handed swords). Each skeleton warrior's soul is trapped in a golden circlet. The warrior can be controlled by anyone who puts its circlet upon his own head and concentrates.

Skin Kite

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

Ragged, rotting shapes of animate skin capable of swooping and flapping through the air to attack victims.

Flaying Alive: They tear off their victim's skin, piece by piece, and use what they steal to spawn more skin kites.
Non-Health Damage: While melded with a victim, skin kites absorb chunks of skin, dealing Charisma damage.
Personal Space Invader: Skin kites attack by wrapping around and melding with a victim's flesh, an improved form of grapple attack that is difficult to remove, tearing the skin kite away deals additional damage.

Skirr

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

These bizarre, bull-headed skeletal creatures are prone to swooping out of the sky to snatch up victims, then dropping them a fatal distance before feasting on their remains.

Dem Bones: Not a bit of flesh left on their bodies, begging the question of how they eat.
Giant Flyer: Skirrs are officially Huge, with a wingspan that can exceed 50 feet.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Their claw-footed legs are like those of a raptor, their bony arms end in long fingers like a bat's wings, and their bovine skulls have horns but also long teeth to rend flesh.
Mummy: Though skeletal, skirrs are covered in decaying funerary wrappings to invoke this trope, but don't share any special abilities with true mummies.
Wings Do Nothing: Again, their wings are completely skeletal, so some magic is responsible for their flight.

Skiurid

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Malicious creatures from the Plane of Shadow that can conjure pools of unnatural darkness to drain the life from their victims... okay, they're basically shadow squirrels.

Casting a Shadow: Skiurids can cast a variant of the darkness spell that also deals damage and potentially lowers the Strength of any non-shadow creatures caught in it.
Eye of Newt: If their "Chill Darkness" attack deals damage, it creates a nugget of coalesced shadow, which the skiurids use for food (and hoard like acorns). Spellcasters can use those shadow-nuggets as optional material components that have a 50% chance of improving a necromancy spell's effective caster level by two, so the things can sell for 1,000 gp apiece.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: These critters prefer to blanket their victims with damaging darkness, snatch the resulting nuggets of shadow, and then do a short-ranged teleport to make their escape.
Killer Rabbit: Yes, they're Shadowfell squirrels, but they tend to work in colonies, they're evasive little buggers, and there's no saving throw against the damage of that "Chill Darkness" attack. If they're run right, they can threaten even mid-level characters.
Gruthark: Go ahead. Laugh. I did, once. Once.
Shadow Walker: They can teleport up to 30 feet per day so long as their entry and exit points are in shadowy places, and their "Chill Darkness" attack counts in this regard.

Skorenoi

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid or Fey (3E)
Challenge Rating: As base creature +1 (or +2 if Fey) (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Bestial beings corrupted by the fell god Chaos into misshapen brutes.

Beast Man: All skorenoi were "bestial" races to begin with — centaurs, satyrs, minotaurs, kyrie, and so forth — while their transformation further blurs their humanoid and animalistic traits. The skorenoi pictured was originally a satyr, for example.
Body Horror: Along with their muddled features, skorenoi sport bluging muscles and veins, and red lumps on their bodies.
Defeat Equals Explosion: Skorenoi explode into a fireball when slain, dealing damage to all within 5 feet of them, as well as the weapon used to deal the killing blow.
Reforged into a Minion: The first skorenoi were centaurs and later satyrs abducted by their rogue centaur chieftain Chrethon and corrupted by the evil treant Grimbough, turning them into loyal followers. However, other skorenoi have been spotted across Ansalon, suggesting that other disciples of Chaos know how to make them.
Unholy Nuke: As creations of Chaos, once per day skorenoi can make a "Smite Law" attack.

Skrit

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Vermin (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

7-foot-long, carnivorous, desert-dwelling beetles, well-protected by their armored shells.

Big Creepy-Crawlies: They resemble Large, heavily-armored fleas.
Crafted from Animals: Skilled smiths can convert a skrit's shell into armor the equal of banded mail. It's noted that other desert creatures similarly use dead skrits' shells as shelter, which in most cases is no danger to adventurers, unless an enormous swarm of ants comes boiling out of a skrit shell.
Mating Season Mayhem: Skrits mate in the early spring, during which time their males become particularly aggressive as they compete for females, attacking anything that draws near.
Poisonous Person: Skrits' bites carry a nasty enzyme — it not only paralyzes a victim for up to 18 hours, it also dissolves the victim's flesh, dealing ongoing hit point (in 2E) or Constitution damage (in 3E) every hour until they're reduced to a "soupy, gelatinous mess" the skrit will then slurp up.
That's No Moon: They typically hunt by parking themselves among rocky outcroppings, passing themselves off as another stone formation until prey wanders close.

Skulk

Origin: Greyhawk
Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 3 (4E), 1/2 (5E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E-4E), Chaotic Neutral (5E)

Extremely stealthy humanoids who use their talents for murder.

Anti-True Sight: 3rd Edition skulks are under a constant nondetection effect.
Axe-Crazy: Regardless of edition, skulks revel in bloodshed. Their 2nd Edition write-up mentions that they enjoy framing groups for their murders to sow violent discord in a society, in 3rd Edition they take particular pleasure in gruesomely slaying wealthy elites, and in 5th Edition they carry out the orders of their summoners in the most violent ways possible.
Back Stab: Their 2nd Edition write-up gives them the backstab ability of 5th-level thieves.
Chameleon Camouflage: Traditionally, skulks can alter their skin tone to blend in with their surroundings. They can also adopt a "natural" skin color to try to pass for a human, but can be given away by their blue, pupil-less eyes.
Invisible Monsters: 5th Edition skulks are so devoid of identity that they're naturally invisible. Besides magic, there are a few ways to spot them: skulks are visible in the reflections of mirrors or polished surfaces, they're revealed by the light of a candle made from the fat of an annonymous corpse... and humanoid children of ten years or under can see them just fine.
Mordenkainen: Some children have imaginary friends that their parents can't see. Sometimes these invisible friends aren't imaginary.
Retcon: Their 3rd Edition lore was that skulks were the descendents of an ancient society's "untouchable" caste, who went through a ritual to make them trully beyond notice, allowing them to get their bloody revenge on their oppressors. In 5th Edition, skulks are instead the shells of those who became lost in the Shadowfell, to be summoned as invisible servants by a ritual.
Stealth Expert: Skulks leave no tracks, blend in with their surroundings, have natural bonuses to stealth rolls, can be hard to detect magically, and in 5th Edition are just plain invisible.

Skulking Cyst

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

The culmination of the necrotic cyst spell line, these horrible creatures are free-roaming masses of necrotic tissue trailing rotting organs and maggot-ridden heads or limbs.

Body Horror: All undead are grotesque to some degree, but this is literally a necrotic tumor surrounded by rotting viscera, slithering along the ground or walls.
Chest Burster: These creatures are created when an evil spellcaster uses necrotic cyst on a target, implanting within them a necrotic mass that can become the focus of further spells. The necrotic eruption spell causes this mass to burst free, potentially inflicting a One-Hit Kill as the new skulking cyst is "born."
Life Drain: A skulking cyst attacks by latching onto a victim's body with its animate intestines or the like, draining blood and dealing Constitution damage.
The Virus: After its drained several points of Constitution, the skulking cyst can use necrotic cyst to seed a victim with another of its kind.

Skull Lord

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cb96fb1cbc08269255787e4637c82b6d.png

Classification: Undead (3E-5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 15 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Undead warlords with three heads, skull lords command great armies of the undead and constantly fight amongst themselves for control of the Shadowfell.

Ballistic Bone: Their 3rd Edition stats both plays this straight and reverses it. Skull lords' "Bone Beckon" ability makes bone shards burst out of a victim, dealing damage. Those shards can then be used by the skull lord to heal itself or other nearby undead, or fired as a weapon - and if the shards are fired at the same creature they came from, the attack automatically hits unless the victim is in cover.
Evil Sorcerer: In 5th edition, skull lords are powerful spellcasters.
Fusion Dance: Each skull lord was once three separate people. They were fused together into a single undead entity as punishment.
Gradual Regeneration: In 5th edition, a skull lord's very presence causes nearby undead creatures to regain a small amount of hit points at the start of their turns.
Multiple Head Case: Every skull lord has three heads. Each head constantly plots against the other two, making a skull lord its own worst enemy.
Necromancer: Skull lords can magically summon a squad of zombies and/or skeletons to back them up. If any of the zombies or skeletons get destroyed, the skull lord can replace them as often as it wants. Their 3rd Edition write-up also credits them as the original creators of the bonespurs, serpentirs and spectral riders.
Retcon: While skull lords are currently associated with Vecna, their original background was that they were twelve potent undead spontaneously created by the magical backlash that accompanied the death of the necromancer Vrakmul, who they are obsessed with reviving. This came with a note that this Vrakmul was an intentionally Cryptic Background Reference to be dropped into a setting as needed.
Subsystem Damage: In 3rd Edition, as a skull lord falls past two-thirds and one-third of its maximum hit points, it loses a head and its resistance to Turn Undead effects weakens before failing entirely.
You Have Failed Me: They were once the generals of Vecna, the Lich God, before he was a god. When Vecna died, the generals turned on each other for the throne. Upon ascending to godhood, Vecna stiched three and three of them together and left them to fight over the worthless Shadowfell as a punishment.

Skuz

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Undead (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Large masses of decaying flesh and putrid slime that arise in stagnant water and sewers, where they attack every living creature they encounter.

Achilles' Heel: They're distinctly vulnerable to lower water, which fully halves their hit points in 3rd Edition. 2nd Edition also states that raise dead instantly kills a skuz.
Creepy Souvenir: 2nd Edition notes that skuz take trophies from their victims, such as coins, jewelry or armor, which they hoard in their lairs. If a group of skuz is working together, the one with the most impressive collection is their leader.
Luring in Prey: They can use magic like watery double or major image to create illusory drowning victims to lure would-be rescuers into the water.
Muck Monster: Formed from bodies left to putrefy in water and filth, skuz consist of equal parts liquefied corpse, stagnant water and rotten vegetation.
Sinister Suffocation: They prefer to drown their victims, either in their home water or within the skuz's fluid body — in the latter case, it's noted that it's more difficult than usual for the victim to hold their breath, because the skuz is actively trying to invade their air passages.
The Virus: Anyone drowned by a skuz rises as another one in a few days.

Skyfisher

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Aberration (standard) or Outsider (pernicious) (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (standard) or 7 (pernicious) (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral (standard), Neutral Evil (pernicious)

Hideous avian predators who snatch up victims in their claws, only to drop them to their deaths.

Feathered Fiend: Even "normal" skyfishers are aberrant creatures who seem to enjoy despoiling the lands of Solamnia, and are known to attack humanoid children and adults. The so-called "pernicious skyfishers" are properly fiendish, surrounded by "a stench of brimstone and malice." Many cultures thus consider skyfishers to be omens of war and death.
It Can Think: Even an ordinary skyfisher is smarter than the average human, more than enough to understand Common, though they are The Speechless and communicate with each other with squawks and screeches. The larger, fiendish skyfishers are positively brilliant.
Kidnapping Bird of Prey: They're freakishly good at this. A Small, 150-pound skyfisher with a four-foot wingspan is somehow capable of carrying off a Medium-sized creature that weighs up to 200 pounds, while a Medium-sized "pernicious" skyfisher can fly while carrying a Large creature weighing up to 800 pounds. After a few rounds of carrying a victim skyward, the skyfisher will let their prey drop, letting Falling Damage do the work of killing them.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Skyfishers look something like bat-vultures, inheriting the worst traits of both species.
Was Once a Man: One folk legend is that the first skyfisher was a Knight of Solamnia who was cursed after "a moment of passion led to an act of betrayal and murder, transforming the knight into a dark reflection of the Order's kingfisher symbol."

Slaad

Classification: Outsider (3E), Elemental Humanoid (4E), Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1/8 (slaad tadpole) to 10 (death slaad) (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil (4E)

Toad-like humanoids native to the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, who live to spread anarchy.

Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Slaad reproduction centers on the activity of red and blue slaadi. Red slaadi implant small eggs into creatures when attacking with their claws, which after a week or so hatch into infant blue slaadi that eat their way out. Blue slaadi instead spread a disease called slaad fever through their bites, which causes victims to turn into red slaadi. If either method infects an arcane spellcaster, it instead produces a green slaad. Green slaadi can then transform into progressively stronger types of slaad.
Frog Men: They are living embodiments of elemental chaos that just so happen to look like anthropomorphic frogs.
Gone Horribly Wrong: Their backstory in the 5th Edition Monster Manual states that Primus, lord of the modrons, attempted to tame the chaos of Limbo by throwing a gigantic stone infused with the power of law into the rival plane's heart. While this did stabilize Limbo enough for modrons (and later githzerai) to shape some of its chaos into sustainable enclaves, the interaction between law and chaos spawned the slaadi, which proceeded to wipe out every modron in Limbo, while what came to be known as the Spawning Stone continued to create new slaadi to menace the power of law. For his part, Primus stands by his actions and chooses to ignore the slaadi.
Kid with the Leash: Slaadi that emerge from the Spawning Stone or come into contact with it develop a gem-like fragment of the thing in their brain. Should someone manage to extract this control gem from an incapacitated slaad, it is compelled to obey their commands, and cannot be charmed by anyone else.
Metamorphosis: With the exception of the eternally low-ranked reds and blue, slaadi progress through a series of successive metamorphoses as they age, transforming into the next strongest type of slaad every hundred years — green slaadi become grey slaadi, then death slaadi, then white slaadi, and finally black slaadi.
Retcon: 4th Edition, which axed the Chaotic Neutral alignment, redefined the slaadi as Chaotic Evil, added alternate names to existing slaad subtypes ("rift slaadi" for gray slaadi, "talon slaadi" for blue slaadi, etc.), and came up with new slaad types based around a combat gimmick (for example, "flux slaadi" that start combat with a weakness to a random form of energy, but after taking damage from that enegy type grow resistant to it instead and develop a new weakness). All of this was reverted in 5th Edition.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Green, grey and death slaadi can change into humanoid shape. They typically take on the form of whatever person they were spawned from, and they use this power to infiltrate humanoid societies and sow chaos.

Mud Slaad

Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)

The weakest of all slaad variants, mud slaadi exist outside of their kind's normal reproductive cycle and are viewed with derision and contempt by stronger slaadi.

Cower Power: They can cringe in combat, a supernatural mind-affecting ability that can make opponents who fail a Will save balk at attacking the mud slaad.
Healing Factor: Mud slaadi regenerate three hit points of health per round, although this doesn't allow them to recover health lost through privation, such as starvation, thirst or suffocation, or to regrow severed appendages.
Playing Possum: If critically injured, a mud slaad can collapse and feign death during their opponent's turn. It takes a high-level Sense Motive or Heal check to detect that the slaad is still alive.
Super-Scream: Mud slaadi can emit a loud screech that can deal sonic damage to creatures within thirty feet of them.
Viral Transformation: When a mud slaad bites someone, it transmits a magical disease that, over the course of a week, transforms the victim into a new mud slaad.

Red Slaad

Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 15 (4E), 5 (5E)

Red slaadi are simple, violent brutes, mostly used by their stronger kin as thugs.

Dumb Muscle: Red slaadi are very strong and aggressive, but also fairly stupid. Greater slaadi mostly use them as guards, bruisers and frontline brawlers; they aren't really good for much else.
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: A red slaad's claws are ovipositors. They can inject their eggs into the wounds of any humanoid creature they slash, and if the egg is not removed within three months, it will hatch into a slaad tadpole that tears its way out of the host in a messy and fatal fashion.
Fantastic Racism: They loathe blue slaadi, despite depending on the chaos phage they spread to reproduce.
Super-Scream: Red slaadi can emit loud, resounding croaks that leave non-slaad creatures stunned.
Was Once a Man: Red slaadi all began life as humanoids infected by the chaos phage that blue slaadi transmit, which over time cause them to mentally and physically transform into a new slaad.

Blue Slaad

Challenge Rating: 8 (3E), 17 (4E), 7 (5E)

Blue slaadi are big, strong, stupid bruisers only marginally smarter than red slaadi, with whom they share their foul tempers.

Chest Burster: Blue slaadi are born when a red slaad's claw attack plants an egg pellet into another creature. About a week later, this hatches into an infant blue slaad that eats its way out of its host, killing it.
Dumb Muscle: Blue slaadi are technically smarter than reds, but only marginally so; their brute strength remains far and away their greatest asset.
Fantastic Racism: They detest red slaadi, but depend on them to infect humanoids with blue slaad tadpoles.
Viral Transformation: When a blue slaad claws someone, it transmits a magical disease called chaos phage. If the victim is not able to fight off the phage and succumbs to it, they immediately transform into a slaad.

Green Slaad

Challenge Rating: 9 (3E), 18 (4E), 8 (5E)

When a spellcaster is infected by chaos phage or a red slaad's egg pellets, it becomes or produces a green slaad instead, who inherits greater intelligence, an even temper and magical abilities from its former self. Unlike their blue and red kin, who are perpetually confined to their low ranks and talents, green slaadi eventually mature into stronger slaad variants.

Evil Gloating: Green slaadi are very arrogant and haughty, and tend to waste time boasting, gloating and blustering during combat when they should be paying more attention to what their foes are doing.
Playing with Fire: Beyond being able to cast fireball once per day, in 5th Edition, green slaadi can hurl flames as a ranged attack at will.
Was Once a Man: Green slaadi often begin life as humanoid spellacasters who became infected by the chaos phage that blue slaadi transmit, which over time cause them to mentally and physically transform into a new slaad.

Gray Slaad

Challenge Rating: 10 (3E), 13 (4E), 9 (5E)

A green slaad who reaches its first century retreats into isolation, returning as a smaller but more potent gray slaad. They serve the death slaadi, and may be dispatched by their masters to the Material Plane on dark errands.

BFS: They master the greatsword at some point during their transformation, imbued with their magic.
Cannibalism Superpower: What's one of the quickest ways for a gray slaad to promote itself? Eat a death slaad.
Immortality Seeker: Their loyalty to the death slaadi is explained by the gray slaadi being fascinated with their superiors' power and near-immortality.

Death Slaad

Challenge Rating: 13 (3E), 10 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (2E), Chaotic Evil (3E, 5E)

Gray slaadi who undergo a mysterious ritual transform themselves into death slaadi. While physically they are little different from their previous form, their outlook is corrupted by evil, driving them to conscript lesser slaadi into campaigns to invade other planes.

Deadly Gas: Death slaadi pick up the ability to cast cloudkill once per day.
Industrialized Evil: It is the death slaadi that most aggressively propagate new slaadi, by leading their kin to overrun small villages on other planes and turning them into prison/breeding camps, where the entire population is implanted with slaad tadpoles or chaos phage. Once the locals are dead and the next generation of slaadi is born, the death slaadi lead their army on to repeat the process.
Make Them Rot: Their natural and greatsword attacks are infused with negative energy, dealing necrotic damage.

White Slaad

Challenge Rating: 21 (3E)

If a death slaad survives for more than a century, it retreats into solitude to transform into a white slaad, a process that refocuses its mind away from evil and back to their purity of chaos.

Doppelgänger Attack: White slaadi can summon up to six instances of themselves from their immediate past and future to attack a foe all at once.
Power Glows: White slaadi, the second most powerful variety of their kind, are marked by a soft white glow that emanates from every part of their bodies.
Super Spit: White slaadi can spit globs of chaos-stuff at foes up to sixty feet from them, which damages them over several rounds as the chaos attempts to break their bodies down.

Black Slaad

Challenge Rating: 25 (3E), 20 (4E)

Black slaadi are the final stage in the slaad life cycle, maturing from white slaadi whose light is exchanged for impenetrable shadows. Black slaadi are beings of chaos incarnate and immensely dangerous creatures, eclipsing even the might of most ancient dragons.

Living Shadow: Black slaadi appear as masses of pure darkness, toad-shaped voids in creation broken only by a wide fanged grin and two eyes that gleam like stars.
Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: A black slaad's face, like the rest of its body, is a featureless mass of shadow from which two points of light peer out.
Super Spit: Like white slaadi, black slaadi can spit globs of raw chaos at foes, but their attack does twice as much damage.

Gormeel

Challenge Rating: 10 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

These slaadi are a fluke breed that are naturally Lawful, making them enemies of the rest of their kin and allies of the githzerai that have colonized parts of Limbo.

Horse of a Different Color: They often carry githzerai into battle, either on their backs or in basket-like howdahs.
Human Shifting: Of a sort; gormeel can freely polymorph between their true form and that of a githzerai.
Lizard Folk: While normal slaadi resemble humanoid frogs, gormeel are more reptilian, with lizard-like heads and a tendency to walk on their knuckles like apes.
No-Sell: Each round, a gormeel can freely alter its elemental affinity to give themselves immunity to spells with the air, earth, fire or water descriptors, as well as the corresponding energy type (electricity, acid, fire or cold).
The Nose Knows: They have the Scent ability.
Oxymoronic Being: They embody one of the most paradoxical traits of chaos — total randomness' ability to spontaneously create order and structure. As such, unlike other slaadi, gormeel are strictly Lawful Neutral.
Random Effect Spell: Gormeel's Breath Weapon is a 30-foot cone of raw Limbo material, which deals either acid, cold, electricity or fire damage based on a dice roll, and which can cause spellcasters subjected to the effect to roll on the Wild Magic table if they try to work magic the next turn.
Trampled Underfoot: They can deal a decent bit of bludgeoning damage to smaller foes they overrun.

Slasrath

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Wormlike flying horrors with razor-sharp wings, often used as mounts by yugoloth cavalry or commanders.

Bioweapon Beast: The slasraths were created by an enslaved sorcerer from wormlike creatures for his yugoloth masters. Unfortunately for him, some of these first-generation slasraths escaped captivity and now menace the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, leading that sorcerer-slave to become known as "Jehanu the Flayed."
Horse of a Different Color: Most slasraths serve as mounts for the yugoloths, controlled by magic rather than training, since the beasts are nearly mindless.
Poisonous Person: Their barbed stinger tails carry a virulent poison — in 2nd Edition, this causes extreme disorientation that results in cumulative penalties on the victim's rolls until they expire six rounds later, while in 3rd Edition, the poison deals a dose of Strength and Dexterity damage as an initial effect, followed by a heavy amount of Constitution damage as a secondary effect.
Razor Wings: Slasraths can slash at anyone around them during a charge, dealing nasty damage and potentially shredding their victim's armor.

Slaymate

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

These undead children are the grim result of a guardian's negligence or outright betrayal, and are prized as minions by necromancers.

Amplifier Artifact: A sentient, undead example. Slaymates generate a "pale aura" that amplifies necromantic magic in their vicinity. Mechanics-wise, this lets spellcasters use metamagic feats on necromantic spells for one spell level less than they'd normally pay, potentially letting them cast an enhanced spell for its normal casting cost. As a result, some necromancers take to carrying around a slaymate in a little papoose.
Creepy Child: Even apart from the fact that they're undead horrors, a slaymate's creepiness is enhanced by the "too knowing" look in their black eyes, as they have the Intelligence and Wisdom stats of fully-grown adults.
Deceased and Diseased: Their bites carry the pale wasting disease, dealing both Strength and Constituion damage.
Undead Child: They generally appear as slightly-rotten eight-year-olds.

Slig (Athasian)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_slig_2e.jpg

Origin: Dark Sun
Alignment: True Neutral

Large, desert-dwelling humanoids known for their wide mouths, voracious appetites, and the surprising sophistication of their battle tactics.

Barbarian Tribe: On the one hand, the sligs are illiterate, have only a simple spoken language, and survive in part by ambushing their neighbors for goods and food. On the other hand, they actually build permanent settlements with crude but servicable craftsmanship, are smart enough to make good use of stolen metal tools and weapons, and sligs also have an instinctive ability to fight in small formations, such as by having spearmen attack from behind a front rank of swordsmen.
Big Eater: Sligs have to feed constantly, and will starve in only three days. They thus have to launch several hunts each day, at dawn, at noon, and at midnight. Fortunately for them, they naturally recycle their bodily fluids and need little water to survive.
Explosive Breeder: Female sligs reproduce three times each year, giving birth to young that grow to self-sufficiently in just six months and full maturity in a year. This rapid growth requires a great deal of food, so slig young are voracious eaters — "The saying 'sligging down' one's meal comes from the few who have witnessed the inside of a slig community and lived to tell about it."
Lean and Mean: Justified; sligs cannot store body fat, which explains their great appetites.
Lured into a Trap: Sligs' sophistication in battle extends to their ambush tactics. They're known to move ahead of potential targets and plant caches of goods or food and water in their path, in ditches or ravines that the sligs can exploit to gain height advantage. Sometimes this bait is nothing more than a half-buried crate, other times sligs will set up a mock battle site with wreckage, dead beasts of burden, and destroyed wagons. And in other cases, a slig will sneak into a camp to snatch valuables or a prisoner, and leave an obvious trail back to where the rest of the warband is waiting.
Monster Mouth: Sligs are known for their extremely wide jaws, filled with teeth that are "nasty, broken, and yellow, and are always displayed in a maniacal grin."
Primal Stance: They'd be seven feet tall if they stood up straight, but commonly go about hunched over so they can use their arms to assist their movements.
Psychic Link: Sligs have a natural but limited form of telepathy that lets them communicate hunting and battle tactics with one another. This lets them launch ambushes in total silence and fight in close ranks without getting in each other's way, and means that a slig warband has no single leader, rather the warriors conceive of and execute plans as a collective. This has caught the interest of alchemists, who are willing to pay for live slig test subjects, and has led to old wives' tales about slig blood or bone marrow being a psionic stimulant.

Slig (Krynnish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_slig_3e.png

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Reptilian humanoids who dwell in rocky canyons and hills, ambushing those who draw too near their lairs.

Acid Attack: Their fanged mouths carry an acid, not a poison, so their bite attacks deal a bit of additional acid damage, and three times per day a slig can spit a gob of acid that deals more damage and can blind a victim for a few rounds.
Body Paint: Rather than clothes, sligs decorate themselves with zig-zagging body paint or tattoos, supplemented by jewelry and trinkets.
Full-Boar Action: Sligs are known to ride dire boars into combat, either using the beasts to bulldoze opponents into prepared traps, or leaping onto foes from their mounts' backs.
Our Kobolds Are Different: Sligs are said to be related to kobolds, whom they dominate and bully for resources, even though sligs are closer to Snake People in appearance than Draconic Humanoids like D&D kobolds in other settings. However, in Krynn, kobolds are thought to be descended from breeding experiments between bakali lizardfolk and goblinoids, and the sligs claim a similar ancestry. They also share a kobold-like affection for elaborate traps and ambushes.

Slithering Bloodfin

Origin: Critical Role
Classification: Aberration (5E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Large serpentine predators that haunt the lightless depths of Exandria's Netherdeep.

Defeat Equals Explosion: When a slithering bloodfin dies, it explodes in a cloud of toxic gore and blood.
Life Drain: A slithering bloodfin heals itself by draining life energy from swallowed prey.
Mix-and-Match Critters: A slithering bloodfin has the body of a giant eel and the head of a shark.
Swallowed Whole: They're able to unhinge their jaw to swallow smaller creatures, which take constant necrotic damage in the slithering bloodfin's gullet.

Slithering Tracker

Classification: Ooze (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral (2E), Chaotic Evil (5E)

Watery slime monsters that can flow under doors and up walls after their quarry, then drain the life from them.

And I Must Scream: While a 5th Edition slithering tracker maintains their intelligence and sentience after their transformation, most end up going mad from being trapped in a mute, bloodthirsty blob form, and after killing their original target go on a murderous rampage.
He Was Right There All Along: When motionless, a slithering tracker is very hard to distinguish from a pool of non-murderous water.
The Paralyzer: 2nd Edition slithering trackers can paralyze their victims for 12 hours, while it only takes them one hour to drain the plasma from a man-sized victim.
Revenge Before Reason: 5th Edition casts slithering trackers as the result of a ritual in which someone, whose thirst for revenge matters more than their own life, voluntarily transforms themselves into an ooze by magically draining their body of moisture. The subject's mind lives on in the new ooze, which goes off to murder the target of their ire.
Vampiric Draining: Once a slithering tracker grapples an enemy, it leaches plasma from their body (in 2nd Edition) or starts to drown them while dealing necrotic damage each turn (in 5th Edition).
Wall Crawl: These oozes can run up walls and even across ceilings without difficulty.

Slyth

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

Beings who can assume an amorphous form, and consider themselves the caretakers of the Underdark.

Blob Monster: Slyths have soft, round features in their humanoid form, and their signature ability is assuming a semisolid, amorphous form that gives them many ooze immunities and lets them squeeze through tight spaces. Any gear the slyth was wearing is transformed too, but they can't fight in blob form and their magic items don't function. They can only assume their alternate form for ten minutes per level, and have to spend as much time in humanoid form as they spent in ooze form before they can assume it again.
Loved by All: Their helpfulness and refusal to get involved in other races' wars means that the slyths have amicable relations with just about everyone in the Underdark. The exceptions are the mind flayers and aboleths, whom the slyths go out of their way to avoid.
Multiple-Choice Past: No one's sure where the slyth came from, whether they're descended from earth or water genasi, the result of aboleth experiments on humans or derro, or if a deity like Shar or Chauntea was involved in their creation.
Nature Hero: Slyths live in harmony with the natural world of the deep caverns, and consider it their duty to help others live the same way. They often become druids or rangers, looking after stretches of the Underdark, but also undertake missions to other subterranean races to give advice on animal husbandry, food cultivation or foraging underground.
No-Sell: They're immune to polymorphing and poison, can breathe underwater just fine, and resist sonic damage.

Snowcloak

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Large flying predators also known as "snow ghosts" for their habit of hunting prey during snowstorms.

Flying Seafood Special: Snowcloaks look something like oversized, two-headed Sinister Stingrays with club-like tails.
Healing Factor: They regenerate lost health unless damaged by fire or acid. This leads snowcloaks to favor Hit-and-Run Tactics, wearing down prey with repeated attacks while the aberrations regenerate between strikes.
It Can Think: Snowcloaks have human-level intelligence and can speak Auran and Common, and can cast spells like magic missile and dimension door to aid their hunts, but live as wandering predators.
The Paralyzer: Their wing-claws deliver a poison with an initial effect of Dexterity damage, but a secondary paralysis effect that can last up to four hours.
Stealth Expert: They're adept at blending in with their wintery surroundings, as the gray coloration of their underbellies lets them blend in with cloudy skies, while their white tops help them hide by burying themselves beneath snowbanks. They can also use magic like obscuring snow or outright invisibility to aid their hunts.

Characters / Dungeons And Dragons Creatures S Part One

Sa-Sn

Shell Shark

Frost Salamander

Crested Sea Serpent

Lantern Sea Serpent

Spiked Sea Serpent

Lavawight / Winterwight

Runic Guardian

Mud Slaad

Red Slaad

Blue Slaad

Green Slaad

Gray Slaad

Death Slaad

White Slaad

Black Slaad

Gormeel

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / Dungeons And Dragons Creatures S Part One

Edit Locked

Sa-Sn

Shell Shark

Frost Salamander

Crested Sea Serpent

Lantern Sea Serpent

Spiked Sea Serpent

Lavawight / Winterwight

Runic Guardian

Mud Slaad

Red Slaad

Blue Slaad

Green Slaad

Gray Slaad

Death Slaad

White Slaad

Black Slaad

Gormeel

Previous

Index

Next