Characters / Dungeons And Dragons Creature Types

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Beginning in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, bestiary entries were classified under one of several creature types (and subtypes), which determine whether a given creature is vulnerable to certain effects. In 3rd Edition in particular, some creature types come with an array of assumed traits, resistances, and immunities. 4th Edition expanded upon this system, while 5th Edition simplified it and reduced the significance of creature types, but there are still enough commonalities between creatures of a given type that they're worth mentioning.

These types are subject to change with every edition, and what a given creature is classified as may similarly change, even within an edition.

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Aberrations

Grell (5e)

Aberrations are living creatures, but distinguished from Beasts and Monstrosities by their bizarre abilities, anatomies, and/or alien mindsets. Whether because they hail from another world or have been warped by eldritch energies, these creatures are not truly a part of the Material Plane, and in the worst cases are actively hostile to it. Some of Dungeon and Dragons' most notorious monsters are Aberrations, such as the insidious mind flayers and egomaniacal beholders.

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• Eldritch Abomination: The worst Aberrations look nothing like mundane creatures, and more like one of H.P. Lovecraft's nightmares.
• Humanoid Abomination: A rare few Aberrations look largely humanoid, save for something indescribably off about them. An example would be the elans, who have transcended their humanity through a psionic ritual, and come across as slightly unusual to other people.
• Lovecraft Lite: Some Aberrations wouldn't be out of place in a Call of Cthulhu campaign (and indeed, 3rd Edition D&D was fully compatible with its contemporary edition of CoC), but since D&D focuses on heroic fantasy for the most part, the expectation is that the heroes will prevail and kick the Lovecraftian monsters back to wherever they came from. The likes of aboleths and mind flayers are seen as monsters whose time has passed or interlopers who don't belong, not the world's true inheritors whose rising is only a matter of time.
• Psychic Powers: Many aberrations are latently psionic, another way of reinforcing their divide from "naturally" extraordinary creatures that use magic to power their abilities.

Beasts

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

Most mundane fauna on the Prime Material Plane can be classified as beasts, though this is not to say that these creatures cannot be fantastical in size or shape. Generally speaking, Beasts lack any blatantly supernatural abilities, and have only an animal's intelligence. A simple draft horse, a dire bear, and giant spider are all classified as Beasts.

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• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Oversized insects are common enough in D&D bestiaries for there to have been a "Vermin" creature type in past editions.
• Dire Beast: One of the easiest ways to make normal animals dangerous to mid-level parties is to simply scale them up a size category, creating "dire" versions of wolves, bears, etc.
• Fantastic Livestock: Some D&D Beasts are mundane only compared to their worlds' other lifeforms. Underdark races tend herds of rothé, literal underground musk oxen, while people on the world of Athas domesticate giant insects known as kanks.
• Retcon: 3.0 had Animal, Beast and Magical Beast types: Animal was modern animals with a soft Intelligence cap of 2; Beast was "Animal but stronger" with dinosaurs, Dire Beasts and fictional-but-grounded creatures; Magical Beast had outright fantastical abilities and sometimes human-level intellect. 3.5 would remove the Beast type, splitting it between Animal and Magical Beast, and introduced a number of fictional Animals. However, a vestige of the old classification remained in how certain abilities for calming/training Animals could also be used with reduced effectiveness on "Magical Beasts with an Int of 1 or 2".
• Smash Mook: Since Beasts by definition lack magical abilities, they're fairly simple to run in combat, with few attack options more complicated than "bite," "claw" or "stomp."
• The Swarm: Many monster entries concern swarms of smaller creatures like spiders, rats, "quippers," etc.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Beasts classified as Vermin in 3rd Edition are typically mindless, given an Intelligence score of "—" to represent how they're operating purely by instinct or are subservient to a hive mind. As such, they're immune to all mind-affecting effects such as charms, compulsions, phantasms, morale effects, etc.

Constructs

Iron golem (5e)

As their name suggests, Constructs were manufactured and given a semblance of life by magic. They tend to be heavily reliant on their maker's supervision and orders, and are usually designed to be laborers or guardians, though a rare few Constructs are both intelligent and free-willed. Golems are the most famous kind of Constructs, though there are many others.

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• Clockwork Creature: Some of the more sophisticated Constructs are crafted from metal and gears.
• No-Sell: Since Constructs lack metabolisms, most of them are immune to poison or disease, and can't be exhausted or paralyzed. Their lack of personality tends to make them immune to charm or morale effects, too.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: That same lack of metabolism means that a Construct can keep going until it physically falls apart, or whatever magic animating it fades.

Deathless

Crypt warden (3e)

Found in editions 3.0 and 3.5, Deathless is a rare creature type which serves as a rough Good Counterpart to Undead, representing creatures who persist beyond death through positive energy rather than negative energy. The majority of Deathless are either found in Book of Exalted Deeds or are members of Eberron's Undying Court (later retconned to Undead).

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• Messianic Archetype: One of the easiest ways for a Player Character to become Deathless is by dying in a Heroic Sacrifice while still having a noble goal they need to accomplish. If they meet the prerequisites (including Good alignment and the Nimbus of Light feat) their corpse can stand back up as a lv0 member of the Risen Martyr Prestige Class.
• No-Sell: Like Undead they are immune to attacks which target their mind or metabolism, and they also don't take bonus damage from many light- and fire-based spells like Undead do. However, some anti-Undead spells (such as hide from undead and undeath to death) also work on Deathless, and unlike Undead they are vulnerable to negative levels and other effects which attack life force directly.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Both Averted and Played Straight:
  • While their overall abilities are similar to Undead, they are affected by cure and inflict spells like a living creature instead of having their effects inverted. This also makes them susceptible to some attacks like energy drain which don't affect Undead.
  • A good cleric with the power to turn or destroy Undead can use it to rebuke or control Deathless, and likewise an evil cleric with the power to rebuke or control Undead can use it to turn or destroy Deathless. Similarly a Deathless standing in the area of a consecrate or hallow spell receives the same Status Buff as an Undead in an area of desecrate or unhallow (and vice versa is weakened in those areas in the same way that Undead are weaker on consecrated ground).
• Semi-Divine: Sometimes portrayed in this way, as part of their being sustained by the positive emotions of their followers and loved ones rather than the negative emotions of their victims.
• Sixth Ranger: The only creature type in 3.0 and 3.5 which was not described at the start of either edition.
• Spiritual Successor: To the mummy in earlier editions of the game, which was affected by positive energy as a living creature. Also to various "good undead" such as the archlich.

Dragons

Wyvern (5e)

Dragons are reptilian creatures more powerful and intelligent than mere Beasts and Monstrosities, and often possess innate magic. That said, their intellect, magical ability and even body shape can vary tremendously. "True" dragons are described on their own page, while other, lesser Dragons include wyverns, sea serpents, and a variety of small "dragonets."

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• Draconic Humanoid: Several dragon-descended bipeds have appeared throughout the game's history — dragonkin, draconians, dragonborn — as well as more tauric creatures such as dracon and drakkoths.
• Dragon Ancestry: True dragons are notoriously cross-fertile, so that not only do many humanoid sorcerers claim that their power comes from dragon blood, there are a variety of dragon-descended crossbreed monsters like the dracimera and dracolisk. 3rd Edition went so far as to add "half-dragon" and "draconic creature" templates that could be applied to any living, corporeal creature, as well as a "dragonblooded" subtype to cover creatures with more distant dragon ancestry.
• Dragon Variety Pack: There are many in-universe terms for distinct families of dragon-like creatures.
  • "True" dragons fit the Western dragon mold for the most part, being highly-intelligent, scaly creatures, usually with four legs and two wings (batlike or finned like fish), although some varieties lack the wings or some or all of the legs. They're known for their Breath Weapons and other magical abilities, a frightful presence that can send lesser creatures fleeing, and for growing through distinct age categories. True dragons are further divided into several families, such as the chromatic, metallic, gem and ferrous dragons, distinguished by scale color, moral proclivities and elemental affinities, though there's a fair number that don't fit into such families. Asian dragons are represented by the lung dragon family, which can be considered a variety of true dragons with a unique life cycle — every lung dragon is born as a lowly carp dragon, but upon its 101st birthday transforms into one of several wildly-different adult lung dragon breeds.
  • "Linnorms" are a primeval offshoot of dragons inspired by Norse dragons, specifically the Swedish lindworm. They tend to lack hind legs or wings, and thus slither their serpentine bodies while walking on their forelimbs. They are intelligent and dangerous, possessing breath weapons and other magic, but not a frightful presence like true dragons. They're also universally evil, and hopefully going extinct. 2nd Edition considers them a family of "Norse" dragons, while 3rd Edition linnorms lack several traits associated with "true" dragons.
  • The term "drake" is essentially a byword for "lesser dragon," and has been used to describe a wide variety of creatures, from wyvern-like flyers to sea serpents to theropod-like bipeds. From 4th Edition on, the term is most consistently used to describe quadrupedal dragons, sometimes winged, sometimes not, that are smaller, less intelligent, and less powerful than true dragons, lacking breath weapons or other magic.
  • "Dragonets" are a family of shoulder-sized dragons whose telepathic abilities make them valued as Familiars. Their most famous species are the pseudodragons and fairy dragons.
  • "Landwyrms" are a family of quadrupedal lesser dragons varying greatly in size and power, adapted for specific terrain. They're intelligent, and though they lack breath weapons, they're the only non-true dragons with a frightful presence, leading some sages to speculate they're the ancestors of true dragonkind.
  • "Wurms" are a family of four-limbed but sinuous, wingless draconic creatures that are "distant cousins" of true dragons, and were originally created by a group of druids to protect nature from encroaching civilization. They're intelligent, grow through age categories, have breath weapons, and learn (druidic) magic, but lack a frightful presence. Like landwyrms, wurms come in an array of subspecies adapted for specific biomes.
  • "Drakken" are creatures of clear dragon descent, but that dragon blood has been diluted over the generations to the point that it's lost most of its magical properties, so that they're considered Animals rather than Dragons.
• Master of All: In 3.x Dragons likely have the best racial Hit Dice of any creature type (rivalled only by Outsiders) - each "level" of Dragon has all good saving throws, the BAB and hit points of a Barbarian, and almost as many skill points as a Rogue.
• No-Sell: In 3rd Edition, all Dragons are immune to Forced Sleep and paralysis effects.

Elementals

Galeb duhr (5e)

Elementals are beings that embody the power of the Inner Planes, and are comprised primarily or entirely of one or more of those elements. The various "X elementals" are the most famous type of Elementals, but others include azers, invisible stalkers, water weirds and xorns.

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• Elemental Embodiment: The "purest" Elementals are nothing more than animate masses of one (or more) of the fundamental substances of the universe.
• The Needless: Many elemental creatures don't require rest or sustenance, and simply exist as incarnations of a particular form of matter. Other elemental creatures form supernatural ecosystems in which they prey upon each other.
• Our Genies Are Different: Genies, classified as Outsiders from the Inner Planes in 3rd Edition, were retyped as Elemental Humanoids in 4th Edition, and simply Elementals in 5E.
• Our Souls Are Different: Unlike most beings, elementals don't have a "dual nature," as their body and soul are essentially the same thing. If an elemental is slain, no soul is released, they're just gone. This makes elementals difficult to revive with standard magic, instead it takes the likes of true resurrection or limited wish to bring one back.

Fey

Pixie (5e)

Fey are inherently magical beings with strong ties to the natural world. Many appear humanoid, though with fantastic features, and all tend to have strong personalities whether they're inhumanly beautiful or twisted echoes of humanity. Fey like dryads and nymphs are usually considered "good," while the likes of redcaps and quicklings can be outright murderous, but even the most benign of Fey are dangerous when riled.

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• Achilles' Heel: Traditionally, Cold Iron overcomes fey's Damage Reduction.
• Faerie Court: The Seelie and Unseelie Courts have been mentioned since 2nd Edition, while 4th Edition describes a Court of Stars containing numerous factions — Summer, Winter, Green, Sea, Gloaming and Unseelie Fey, with the implication that there are even more.
• The Fair Folk: While Fey come from all over the Good-Evil axis of the alignment spectrum, even good Fey have a mischievous side, and can be arrogant or elitist. Evil fey can be the stuff of nightmares.
• Land of Faerie: Where exactly Fey come from has varied by edition.
  • The 2nd Edition Planescape setting was the first to clarify that the leaders of the fey races inhabit a mobile demiplane that shifts across the several of the Chaotic upper planes.
  • 3rd Edition introduced the Plane of Faerie as an optional part of its cosmology, a realm of untamed nature and endless twilight where the relatively benign Seelie Fey and the malevolent Unseelie Fey clash and struggle for dominance.
  • 4th Edition went out of its way to give Fey a solid place in the multiverse, and greatly elaborated upon their home plane. The Feywild is a realm of untamed nature mixed with raw magic and intensified emotion, creating a place of physical, emotional and spiritual extremes. It is a "mirror plane" to the mortal world, created at the dawn of creation when the Primordials discarded motes of creation-stuff that were "too bright" as part of creating the mortal plane. This makes it very easy to travel between the two planes. Many fey races live here, including new and old ones, with elves and gnomes in particular being given new backstories that presented them as races native to the Feywild that have partially colonized the realm of mortals. The ruling powers of the Feywild are the Archfey, who are loosely organized into a collective known as the Court of Stars, and the dominant civilizations are the eladrin (ur-elves) ruled over by their Sidhe Lords, who represent a relatively benign faction of fey, and the fomorions, hideously deformed and incurable insane giant-kin marked by their Evil Eyes.
  • 5th Edition retains the Feywild as a part of its core cosmology, but The Wild Beyond the Witchlight gives it a fairy-tale spin (unsurprising, as 1st edition had the genuine Wonderland appear) with the addition of rabbitfolk, swashbuckling dandelions, and whimsical, but still deadly, inhabitants.
• Wicked Witch: Hags, considered Monstrous Humanoids in 3rd Edition, were reclassified as Fey beings in 4th.
• The Wild Hunt: Several Fey creatures embody the concept, such as the hoary hunter, lunar ravager, and of course the "wild hunt" entry.

Giants

Ogre (5e)

Giants are unsurprisingly defined by their size, looming over lesser humanoids and frequently using their corresponding strength to get what they want. "True" giants are the children of Annam All-Father and live according to a social structure known as the ordning, but there are a variety of lesser Giants such as ogres, trolls and cyclopes.

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• Our Giants Are Bigger: For starters, Giants are typically of at least Large size, and as of 5th Edition, all proper "X giants" are Huge or larger.
  • As mentioned, the "true" giants are the six types of giant that follow the ordning, but there are also offshoots from that family, like the mountain and fog giants, who are descended from those true giant kindreds but are now distinct subraces in their own right. And there are clearly giant beings that exist outside the ordning, like jungle and sand giants, that have an uncertain relationship to Annam. They're all described on the "Giants" subpage.
  • There are also "giantkin" — cyclopes, firbolgs, fomorians, ogres, verbeegs and voadkyn — that are at best half-siblings to true giants, and placed last in the ordning. Many of them are said to be the illegitimate children of Annam's wife Othea.
  • Trolls are classified as Giants, but have no consensus over where they came from. Some tales have them as the result of a Bed Trick played on Annam by an ogress, in others they were born from blood shed by the savage god Vaprak.
  • Finally, half-giants and goliaths are descended from giants, but are considered Humanoids rather than having the Giant type.
• Oxymoronic Being: The Giant creature type is technically independent of a creature's size category, leading to the rare Medium-sized Giants such as the forest troll or half-giant that aren't much bigger than the average human.
• Smash Mook: Most Giants tend to be unsophisticated combatants, with the likes of ettins and ogres opting to run in and pound opponents to paste. But other Giants, such as fomorians and especially the more intelligent "true" giants, can wield potent magical abilities as well.

Humanoids

Half-elf (5e)

The dominant species on the majority of worlds are Humanoids, which as their name suggests follow a human-like body template. Though physically unassuming compared to the likes of dragons and giants, Humanoids have built enduring societies, great civilizations, and mighty empires. Elves, orcs, dwarves, goblins, and many of the game's playable races are considered Humanoids.

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• Humans Are Special: Expanded to humans and their cousins, at least. Various editions have either stated or implied some special function of Humanoids in the cosmos, such as them being the only creature type that can empower deities through worship. Sometimes there's something special about their souls which allows them to become Undead more easily or contribute to the substance of new Outsiders after death. The 3e Ghostwalk setting states that in the city of Manifest (where non-undead ghosts walk among the living) only Humanoids can become ghosts naturally, though magic can allow some other creatures to become ghosts temporarily. Likewise the warforged of Eberron (a rare example of a widespread but non-Humanoid player race) have In-Universe run into heavy What Measure Is a Non-Human? debates partially because they don't have these special properties (while they do appear to have some kind of soul, no warforged have ever been sighted as undead or in the afterlife).
• Loads and Loads of Races: There are many humanoid races across the worlds of the D&D multiverse, from the Standard Fantasy Races to varieties of Beast Man to stranger human-shaped creatures like the dvati, a single soul in two bodies.
• Monstrous Humanoid: There used to be a distinction between "normal" Humanoids like elves and dwarves, and "Monstrous" Humanoids such as minotaurs and harpies. Since the practical difference was whether spells like hold person applied and whether the creature enjoyed Innate Night Vision, these days that creature type has been dropped and the likes of harpies reclassified as Monstrosities, while playable minotaurs are simply Humanoids.

Monstrosities

Basilisk (5e)

The term "Monstrosity" covers a wide variety of creatures, from magical beasts such as basilisks and hydras, to sapient but inhuman creatures such as sphinxes and nagas, to nearly-humanoid beings such as harpies and yuan-ti. Generally-speaking, Monstrosities have more supernatural traits than Beasts and Humanoids, though sometimes the label goes to creatures that don't fit any other category.

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• Ambushing Enemy: There's a whole category of creatures like mimics and trappers that exist to blend in with their surroundings before jumpscaring an adventuring party.
• It Can Think: Sometimes the key difference between an otherwise-mundane Monstrosity like a worg and a Beast like a wolf is that the former is intelligent enough to have an alignment.
• Our Monsters Are Different: Griffons, hippocampi, hydras, manticores... if it appears in some mythology or folklore, and doesn't fit into one of the other categories on this page, it's a Monstrosity.

Outsiders (including Celestials and Fiends)

Rilmani (3e)

"Outsider" is a now-archaic term for beings that aren't just native to planes beyond the Material Plane, but are partially comprised of those planes' essences. This means that Outsiders can be as varied as the planes of the Great Wheel, but all have some common metaphysical traits.

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• Always Chaotic Evil/Always Lawful Good: Outsiders to some extent personify the ideals of their home plane, so demons' default alignment is Chaotic Evil, archons are Lawful Good, rilmani are True Neutral, and so forth. It is possible for an Outsider to ascend or fall from their starting alignment, but these are rare events.
• Enemy Summoner: Most Outsiders representing one of the game's alignments — celestials, fiends, slaadi, rilmani, etc. — often have the supernatural ability to attempt to summon more of their kind as reinforcements (who can't in turn summon even more creatures). While the likes of Celestials are usually happy to work together against a greater threat, creatures such as Fiends are loath to become indebted to a rival, and will only do so under dire circumstances.
• Made of Good/Made of Evil: Outsiders are partially derived from the very substance of their home plane, and literally embody its associated ethos. This has ramifications if an Outsider changes alignment — an Ascended Demon who becomes Lawful Good would still retain their (Chaotic, Evil) subtypes, meaning that they would be vulnerable to every effect that targets an alignment. Thankfully, sticking to their new alignment seems to eventually cause an Outsider to change their subtype to match.
• Master of All: In 3.x Outsider is one of the two best types of racial Hit Dice (alongside Dragon) - each "level" of Outsider has all good saving throws, combined with the BAB of a Fighter and the skill points of a Rogue.
• The Needless: Outsiders don't have to eat or sleep, though they can do so if they wish.
• Only Killable at Home: Older lore (re-emphasized for Fiends in 5th Edition) asserts that Outsiders "killed" on other planes will re-form on their home plane after some period of time — some accounts say it's instantaneous, others claim it can take centuries. The only way to permanently destroy an Outsider is to kill it on its native plane.
• Our Souls Are Different: Like Elementals (which can be considered Outsiders representing the forces of the Inner Planes), an Outsider's soul and body are one and the same. This again makes them unable to be revived by magic such as raise dead or resurrection, only more powerful spells like true resurrection or miracle can do the job.
• Oxymoronic Being: In 3e "Native Outsiders", aka Outsiders with the (Native) subtype, are born on the Material Plane; unlike most Outsiders they will die without food and sleep, and can be brought back to life as if they were humanoids. Most Native Outsiders are the product of Outsiders interbreeding with mortal creatures; however, it is also possible for populations of Outsiders living on the Material Plane to evolve into Native Outsiders over time, and there are also some classes which cause a Humanoid to transform into one (typically portrayed as Enlightenment Superpowers).

Celestials

Astral deva (5e)

Outsiders from the Upper Planes, Celestials embody the various expressions of Good. Mortals usually find them beautiful and awe-inspiring, but Celestials are fully capable of waging war against the forces of Evil, and can be terrifying foes. Angels are the archetypal Celestials, but there are many others, and intelligent, goodly creatures such as ki-rin, pegasi and unicorns have been classified as Celestials.

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• The Armies of Heaven: Each of the Upper Planes has its own army capable of defending it from rival ideologies, and more rarely, sallying forth to do battle with evil. The eladrins once launched a mass invasion of the Abyss, for example, shattering any attempt by the tanar'ri to form a unified force after overthrowing their obyrith masters.
• Celestial Paragons and Archangels: Each of the main Celestial subtypes have their own not-quite-divine leadership.
  • The Lawful Good archons are led by the Celestial Hebdomad, who have one member for each of the Seven Heavens of Celestia. They most closely resemble the traditional Christian concept of archangels, though the first seven of them were actually raised from seven martyred mortal souls when the multiverse was young. Of those seven, only Zaphkiel of the Seventh Heaven remains, the others have perished and been replaced over the eons.
  • The Neutral Good guardinals are led by Talisid and the Five Companions, who roam Elysium like an exalted, epic-level adventuring party, solving problems and smiting evildoers who dare show their faces. Each represents a guardinal subrace, though the mustevals bear some resentment for the fact that there's no Sixth Companion representing them as of yet.
  • The Chaotic Good eladrins (not to be confused with the fey eladrin of 4th Edition onward) are led by the Court of Stars, which constantly drifts across Arborea and can only be reached through portals with its leader's permission. Queen Morwel has ruled the Court for longer than the eladrins can remember, and governs with the counsel of her two dear consorts, the male tulani Faerinaal and the female bralani Gwynharwyf.
• Good Versus Good: While 2nd Edition mentions that even goodly pantheons may have their angelic hosts wage war against each other to determine whose definition of Good is correct, 3rd Edition firmly states that a Good creature, by definition, does not settle such ideological disputes with violence. Such talk of "wars in heaven" are the result of Fallen Angels getting violently evicted from the Upper Planes, or made up by mortal priests to excuse their attacks on rival faiths.
• Interservice Rivalry: Celestials of differing alignments may debate the merits of their viewpoints, and can strongly disagree on matters of Order Versus Chaos, but unlike the Fiends of the Lower Planes, this does not escalate into violence since everyone involved are also incarnations of Good. "As devoted as they are to law, the archons of Celestia are far better able to countenance the chaos of the eladrins than they are able to stomach the evil of the Hells' devils."
• Omniglot: Celestials tend to have an innate tongues ability, allowing them to converse with any other creature.
• Willing Channeler: As a good counterpart to Demonic Possession, mortals can use magic to invite celestials to merge with their bodies. This only works if the mortal is willing, and leaves them with full control of their body, while they also gain access to the celestial's supernatural abilities and skill ranks, and may enjoy stat boosts as well. When being channeled, the celestial gains access to the mortal's memories and can telepathically communicate with them, but can't read their thoughts, and can end the channeling at any point. Naturally, celestials only allow Good mortals to channel them this way.

Fiends

Horned devil (5e)

Outsiders from the Lower Planes, Fiends are literally Evil incarnate, and usually as horrific in appearance as they are wicked. While they desire to conquer and despoil the rest of the cosmos, the Fiends are hampered by the ideological struggles between them, as well as the treachery and infighting of their own factions. The most infamous Fiends are the demons, devils and yugoloths, but there are many others, from rakshasas and nightmares to hell hounds and incubi.

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• Demon/Devil Distinction: The Trope Codifier and probably one of the biggest influences on this trope's prevalence in media. Both are Fiends, but demons are Chaotic Evil beings from the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, while devils are Lawful Evil creatures from the Nine Hells of Baator. The first devils were allegedly fallen angels and replenish their ranks by converting damned mortals into new devils, while most demons are spawned by the Abyss itself. The demons want to tear down creation or corrupt it into something like the Abyss, while the devils want to "save" the universe by bringing it under their tyrannical rule. Mistaking a devil for a demon can be lethally dangerous, not just because the Fiend is likely to take offense, but because they have different strengths and weaknesses.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: The Lower Planes are ruled by various fiends who managed to bully or manipulate their way into positions of power over their fellows. Demon Lords rule various layers of the Abyss by right of conquest, while Archdevils are appointed to positions of oversight over large sections of the devilish hierarchy by Asmodeus, the ultimate ruler of the Nine Hells. The Yugoloths' equivalents are the General of Gehenna and, prior to 5e, the Oinoloth.
• Evil vs. Evil: Fortunately for the rest of the multiverse, the Fiends are locked in their own internal struggle, known as the Blood War. While it's primarily a demon vs. devil conflict, the nature of the belligerents means that there's also a good deal of demon vs. demon and devil vs. devil fighting as well, and the Blood War's all-consuming nature means that everyone has done something in it, even if that something is running away and hiding. Yugoloths often serve as mercenaries in the Blood War, giving them a vested interest in ensuring it continues indefinitely, and the likes of night hags take advantage of the war to provide customers for their soul trade.
• Forever War: The Blood War has raged for as long as any but the oldest gods can remember, and it will continue to rage until the end of the multiverse. It technically ended in a sort of cold war in 4th edition, when newly ascended Asmodeus exploited the unraveling of the World Tree to shove the Abyss into Chaos while taking the Hells up into the Astral Sea, but it's back to open hostilities in 5th edition.
• Telepathy: Many fiends have the ability to speak telepathically with other creatures.

Oozes

Black pudding (5e)

Oozes are amorphous creatures often found underground or in dungeons. They're typically mindless predators that instinctively seek to absorb or consume anything they come into contact with, which makes the rare intelligent Ooze monster all the more unsettling. Many of D&D's oozes, slimes, puddings and jellies are found under the "Ooze" entry on the main creature index, but other Oozes include the intelligent oblex and plasmoids.

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• Acid Attack: Most oozes "pre-digest" their victims, and some of the most obnoxious varieties apply that to their victims' equipment.
• Blob Monster: If they had a solid shape, they wouldn't be Oozes. In the past this has made Oozes immune to things like critical hits due to a lack of definable internal anatomy, and certain oozes are difficult to damage with slashing or piercing weapons for similar reasons.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Traditionally, oozes are immune to the likes of charm and other mind-affecting effects, because they're predominantly mindless creatures.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The more intelligent (and dangerous) oozes take advantage of their gelatinous nature to reshape their bodies as needed, such as by shifting between ooze and humanoid form, or giving themselves extra limbs.

Plants

Treant (5e)

Most flora are considered non-entities in D&D, but a distressing number of plants and fungi are dangerous enough to be considered creatures rather than mere environmental hazards. Some such as the assassin vine or purple fungus are mindless lifeforms that instinctively attack other creatures, while on the other end of the Plant spectrum are the likes of myconids and treants, which are sapient and intelligent.

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• No-Sell: In 3rd Edition, Plants are immune to all mind-affecting effects, paralysis, polymorphing, sleep spells, stunning, etc., either because the Plant is mindless and acting on instinct, or presumably just too different from animal life to be affected.
• Plant Person: The more intelligent Plants tend to look more humanoid than vegetable, though this isn't a guarantee — the aartuk of Spelljammer are sapient, but better resemble Starfish Aliens.
• Weak to Fire: A good number of Plants are especially vulnerable to fire damage.
• When Trees Attack: There are several Plant monsters that can pass for mundane trees, up to the point they start swinging with their branches or employ stranger abilities.

Shapechangers

Werewolf (5e)

A type exclusive to edition 3.0, representing creatures with an innate control over their form. 3.5 would demote it to a subtype, with most former Shapechangers becoming Magical Beasts.

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• Master of Your Domain: Unlike other creatures with shapeshifting abilities, a Shapechanger forcibly transformed into something else can always just shapeshift back out, even in forms which would otherwise prevent it from acting (such as being turned to stone).
• No-Sell: They receive all good saving throws, like Dragons and Outsiders (but without their high attack bonus and skill points).
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Naturally, though a monster having the Shapechanger type usually has more to do with whether shapeshifting is its central gimmick than in how dramatically they can change.
• Was Once a Man: A number of shapeshifting-centric Prestige Classes eventually change the character's type to Shapechanger (or grant them the Shapechanger subtype, in 3.5).

Undead

Skeleton (5e)

Formerly-living creatures animated by magic, existing as a mockery of life. Some undead are raised by evil spellcasters as minions, while others arise "naturally" to threaten the living.

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• Chill of Undeath: Lacking metabolisms, undead don't generate body heat, and are as hot and cold as their environment. Reports of a deathly chill around the undead are likely because each of them is animated by negative energy, leading some scholars to posit that the very existence of undead produces a constant drain on the energies of the Material Plane, siphoning it to the hungering void that is the Negative Energy Plane.
• The Dead Have Eyes: The 3E Libris Mortis supplement explains that even undead like skeletons who physically lack eyes can still perceive the world thanks to their "lifesense," as if living creatures shed light in a 20-foot radius.
• Fearless Undead: Prior to 4th Edition, undead were immune to morale effects or Supernatural Fear Inducers, especially justified in the case of mindless zombies and skeletons. Intelligent undead are still quite capable of making a Tactical Withdrawal from danger, and in all cases, a cleric's use of Turn Undead can send even suicidally stupid zombies shambling away.
• Horror Hunger: Some undead are sustained wholly by negative energy, but other require physical or intangible sustenance. Libris Mortis distinguishes between "diet dependencies" and "inescapable cravings" — the former must be sated for the undead to function, lest it go inert until a fresh infusion of its preferred meal brings it back to unlife, while the latter is akin to a vicious drug addiction. An undead who fails to satiate its hungers has to make daily Will saves to avoid taking Wisdom damage, representing how such undead fall into "erratic, violent and sometimes self-destructive behavior if htey are denied their preferred morsels."
• I Love You, Vampire Son: Some intelligent undead may seek to convert their loved ones into spawn, but this only creates a state of compulsory affection, not true love.
• No-Sell: Traditionally, undead have a host of immunities — in 3rd Edition in particular, they're immune to diseases and poison, mind-affecting effects, Forced Sleep, paralysis, stunning, death from massive damage, critical hits and sneak attacks. This meant that classes like rogues and mind-bending spellcasters weren't having much fun fighting a necromancer's minions, so starting in 4th Edition, the undead's immunities got pared down considerably, so that as of 5th Edition they're only totally immune to poison.
• Not Always Evil: A majority of the undead are malicious by nature. However, there are those who posess no ill will.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: Undead don't seem to fully decompose no matter how rotten they look — there's no mention of a zombie deteriorating into an animated skeleton — and don't need to breathe or rest, while those without diet dependencies don't need to eat either. Once an undead is created, theoretically it will keep functioning until destroyed.
• Raising the Steaks: While more powerful undead like wights, wraiths and vampires are almost always made from humanoids, simple zombies, skeletons and the like can be made from just about any living things' remains, including unintelligent animals and nonsapient monsters. For example, there have been zombified, skeletal and ghostly incarnations of a Swarm of Rats, the corpse rat, bone rat◊, and ephemeral swarm◊ entries.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Traditionally, undead are powered by necrotic, "negative" energy, whereas living creatures possess "positive" energy, so a cure moderate wounds or heal spell cast on an undead creature would damage it, while a spell that uses negative energy like inflict serious wounds or harm would instead heal an undead of damage. This was phased out starting in 4th Edition, so that undead are instead resistant to necrotic damage and vulnerable to radiant damage, and normal healing magic just doesn't work on them.
• Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: As unliving things without metabolisms, most undead can't naturally, gradually recover lost hit points like living creatures. However, 3rd Edition ruled that intelligent undead slowly repair themselves via "necromantic healing" during periods of inactivity.
• The Virus: Many types of undead can create spawn by slaying living victims, creating either another undead of that type or a lesser undead creature. Most undead are happy to do so, though some quickly view their spawn as competition or threats to be dealt with, and some can make a conscious effort not to generate spawn from their victims.
• Warrior Undead: Several types of undead are attempts to have zombies, skeletons and the like retain more of their martial skill from life. In Eberron, for example, the nation of Karrnath used alchemy and necromancy to produce skeletal and zombified soldiers to fight the Last War with all the tactial ability of living infantry.
• You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: While the undead are just as susceptible to Hit Point damage as anyone else, their lack of bodily functions has been used to justify their long list of condition and damage immunities, or Damage Reduction that requires specific weapon types to overcome. And in general terms, the undead are just plain harder to put down than living creatures — in 5th Edition, a normal human commoner has around 4 hit points and will probably go down from a single sword swipe, while a zombie typically has 22 HP and could potentially have as many as 33 HP, requiring eight rounds of sword attacks to drop.

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